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Article 4744 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Language as Technology: A Phenomenological Study
Message-ID: <1992Mar26.201033.24948@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: 26 Mar 92 20:10:33 GMT
References: <1992Mar25.225555.41966@spss.com> <1992Mar26.130807.18717@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1992Mar26.190527.3034@spss.com>
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Lines: 33

In article <1992Mar26.190527.3034@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>In article <1992Mar26.130807.18717@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil 
>Rickert) writes:
>
>You may also be dealing with the distinction between a physical and a
>non-physical model; but this is not the same as digital/analog either.
>A physical model could be digital (e.g. representing money with poker chips),
>and a symbolic model can include analog elements, such as real
>numbers or vectors.

  I was certainly referring to symbolic models.  I would prefer to avoid the
term "non-physical model", since surely the symbols have some kind of
physical realization in the electrical and chemical signals in the brain.

  I'm not sure what you mean by analog elements in a symbolic model.  The
symbols themselves are surely digital.  What they represent need not be.
My point was that the symbols are largely possible because of the digital
nature of language, which make the symbol set arbitrarily extensible.

>On the neurological level our brains use both types of process, don't 
>they?  E.g. neuron firings are digital, but amounts of neurotransmitters
>are analog.

  That is not at all clear.  Whether neuron firings are digital depends on
how they are used.  There is a great deal that will need to be known
before you can claim they are digital.


-- 
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  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940


