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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Strong AI and consciousness
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References: <jqbD05Ayq.JFp@netcom.com> <D0D12t.3Gs@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <jqbD0D9Bq.9Eq@netcom.com>
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 19:41:50 GMT
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In article <jqbD0D9Bq.9Eq@netcom.com> jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter) writes:
>In article <D0D12t.3Gs@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>,
>Jeff Dalton <jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

>>I talked about canonical / paradignatic examples.  How does that
>>become ideal forms?
>
>A paradigm of *what*? 

Of gold.

>We must already know what we mean by a word before
>we can offer paradigms of it. 

Yeah, I mean: stuff like these coins and rings and candlesticks
that I was told were gold when I asked what gold was.

> If I point to some coins and say "these are
>paradigmatic examples", that's no definition.

I don't know what you mean by "a definition".

But I don't agree that meaning must be in terms of an explicit]
list of properties or anything like that.

>They are examples of coins,
>of gold things, of round things, of shiny things, or gold and/or pyrite
>things, etc. etc.  This does no good whatsoever.  I claim one *could not*
>mean by gold "that which is like these things"; certainly not any 
>coherent communicable meaning.

And I think people often pick up meanings by encountering words
applied to examples.  They may also get some explicit explanations,
e.g. gold is a valuable, malleable metal.  But actual, gold objects
are part of the picture, and one can learn that an object is gold
by being told that it is.  It's not necessary to come up with
a list of properties and then see if what objects have those
properties.

Indeed, someone might produce such a list and be pretty sure it
was the right list for gold and then be shown by example that
they'd left something out.

>>> Of course, among its
>>>other problems, this demands that we can only call "gold" that which has the
>>>precise amount and type of impurities and isotope mix as what happens to
>>>be in Jeff's pocket when he points to it.
>>
>>Not at all.  It remains open to discover what properties gold has
>>and to formulate more precise definitions.  Meaning change is also
>>possible; but then, so is continuity.
>
>Of course meaning change is possible.  But you were talking about a *matter of
>fact* about whether things are gold.  The matter of fact is about a single
>definition at a single point in time, not a continuum of defintions. 

Well, I'm talking about a fixed meaning for "gold" and of the
meaning evolving (so that we can find continuity across several
fixed meanings).  I don't know that I'm talking about definitions
in your sense (whatever that is) at all.

> We aren't
>asking whether people were right about pyrite being "gold as defined some time
>in their future"; no people of these past ever made such assertions.

And I say they could have been wrong in the past to think pyrite
was gold.  But perhaps not.  Perhaps things were exactly as you
think they were.  But that must be shown, not just claimed.

>  To think that one can point to a bunch of plants
>or animals and say "these are paradigmatic examples", and think that from
>that could spring a matter of fact as to whether a given entity is a plant or
>animal, is to be hopelessly confused about the nature of language.

And -- guess what! -- I haven't said anythign of the kind for
"animal" or "plant".

>>>>      My own belief is that every fact
>>>>is ultimately verifiable.  Reality to me consists of everything that exists,
>>>>whether I can know it or not, at all times.
>>
>>I'm inclined to agree with the latter statement.
>
>What does it mean for something to exist? 

So even when I agree with you, I've gotta be wrong?

> Is there something that doesn't
>exist?  (I think Russell said this is tantamount to a syntax error; existence
>is not an attribute.  On the other hand, "unicorns do not exist" is equivalent
>to "the set of things described by the word `unicorn' is empty".)

But is it equivalent to "the set of things that satisfy the following
properties <insert supposed definition of unicorn> is empty"?
I wonder.

-- jd
