From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!pindor Tue Mar 24 09:55:25 EST 1992
Article 4433 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!pindor
>From: pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Mar12.170611.1097@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCS Public Access
References: <1992Mar6.145636.13539@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <1992Mar6.220606.22225@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Mar10.150226.14196@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <6383@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1992 17:06:11 GMT

In article <6383@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>In article <1992Mar10.150226.14196@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>
>> I've thought that we are discussing 'understanding' in a context of
>> AI! If so, how I assign meaning to what *I* say is irrelevant. Even
>> how you assign meaning to what *you* say is irrelevant. What is
>> relevant is how we assign meaning to what other (then us) entity
>> 'says' or does. In particular, if this other entity is a machine,
>> trying to judge machine's performance by the standards of our own
>> subjective 'feelings' is unreasonable.
>
>But can machines assign meaning, or not?  Whether _we_ can assing
>meaning to what they say is not in question.  Of course we can.
>
The particular statement of mine above arose from someone's claim that WE give
meaning to what computers do by interpreting their actions. The same applies
to what other _people_ do - WE interpret it. Your point probably is the WE
assign meaning to what WE do whereas you question machine's ability to do so,
right? The problem is, as I see it, that this 'assigning meaning' is such
a subjective thing, that we can only apply it to humans. If you could say
clearly what it is (define it ?) so that we could objectively be able to 
determine whether another entity 'assigns meaning' to what it does, then
I would consider your point valid. The only way you know that I 'assign 
meaning' to what I do in the same sense that you `assign meaning' to your
actions is that I am 'like you'. If I was an alien being who stepped out from
an UFO, how would you know?

>-- jd


-- 
Andrzej Pindor
University of Toronto
Computing Services
pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca


