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Article 1642 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle (was Re: Daniel Dennett (was Re: Comme
Message-ID: <5709@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 26 Nov 91 19:59:56 GMT
References: <1991Nov14.223348.4076@milton.u.washington.edu> <MATT.91Nov24000158@physics.berkeley.edu> <1991Nov24.195230.5843@husc3.harvard.edu> <1991Nov26.011950.1658@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 22

In article <1991Nov26.011950.1658@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com> max@hilbert.cyprs.rain.com (Max Webb) writes:
>In article <1991Nov24.195230.5843@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>>In article <MATT.91Nov24000158@physics.berkeley.edu> 
>>matt@physics.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern) writes:
>>A symbol is an iconic or a substitutive sign, something that stands for
>>something else.  A C function is a symbol standing for an assembly language
>>algorithm, and, eventually, for a sequence of machine language instructions,
>>in virtue of your system's compilers.  Pray tell, what part of the computer
>>hardware or software could make it stand for something outside the machine,
>>as signs used by humans stand for things in virtue of their meanings?
>
>1) a C function does NOT denote machine language instructions. Otherwise
>   the concept of multiply-targeted C compilers would have no meaning.
>   You are discussing the semantics of programming languages, which you
>   (apparently) have never studied. How *ignorant* of you (to paraphrase
>   your insult of another poster).

It's in our semantics that a C function denotes something more
abstract than machine instructions.  In a compiled program a
function does more or less stand for a sequence of instructions.
That's why, when you do something like f(), that sequence is
executed.


