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Article 4469 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Causes and Goals (was re: The Systems Reply I)
Message-ID: <1992Mar16.005137.13005@a.cs.okstate.edu>
Date: 16 Mar 92 00:51:37 GMT
References: <1992Mar11.201637.21875@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Mar14.010014.552@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> <1992Mar15.170938.9882@husc3.harvard.edu>
Organization: Oklahoma State University, Computer Science, Stillwater
Lines: 51

In article <1992Mar15.170938.9882@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>In article <1992Mar14.010014.552@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
>bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs) writes: 
>BS:
>>  I will argue that the symbols the Room manipulates are not
>>meaningless.  Here goes:
>>
>>  To say that a symbol has meaning is to say that it represents.
>>How does a symbol come to represent?  The Functionalist answer,
>>which I subscribe to, is that a symbol represents if it has
>>the *function* of representing.
>>
>>  What, then, is a "function", and how does something come to
>>have one?
>>
>>  Answer: "function" is a teleological notion.  The function of
>>a component is the role it plays in achieving the *goal* of the
>>system it is part of.
>
>So far, so good.  Note, however, that you might have gotten to the same
>point without assuming "Functionalism", whatever it might be, being that
>the teleological nature of meaning can be deduced from more or less
>universally acceptable semantic premisses.
>
  Mikhail,

  I am turning over the following question to your capable hands:

  Why is it that whenever the capability of the agent or "to 
represent" is exapanded to such a degree that it encompasses things like
computers, that the only argument presented to support that any agent, or
special agents like-a-computer, is capable of representation is presented
by means of the goal?
  It seems that this form of argumenation assumes
what it is trying to prove.  The question, in short, is "can an argumentation
of "to represent" by means of goal alone set a foundation secure enough
to provide specifications for what its agent should be?"

BCnya,
  Charles O. Onstott, III

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Charles O. Onstott, III                  P.O. Box 2386
Undergraduate in Philosophy              Stillwater, Ok  74076
Oklahoma State University                onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu


"The most abstract system of philosophy is, in its method and purpose, 
nothing more than an extremely ingenious combination of natural sounds."
                                              -- Carl G. Jung
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