Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: What's innate? (Was Re: Artificial Neural Networks and Cognition
Message-ID: <jqbD3443y.6nt@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <3gbknj$7tj@mp.cs.niu.edu> <vlsi_libD33461.36s@netcom.com> <3gc5al$hlv@mp.cs.niu.edu> <vlsi_libD33GzF.Js0@netcom.com>
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 11:04:46 GMT
Lines: 31

In article <vlsi_libD33GzF.Js0@netcom.com>,
Gerard Malecki <vlsi_lib@netcom.com> wrote:
>In article <3gc5al$hlv@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>In <vlsi_libD33461.36s@netcom.com> vlsi_lib@netcom.com (Gerard Malecki) writes:
>>>                                  In general, how are both significantly
>>>different from learning a skill like juggling or playing a video game? In
>>>the latter we have the syntactic rules replaced by the rules of the game.
>>
>>But there is a much richer semantics in language than in video game
>>playing.
>>
>Games like chess have a rich semantic content in addition to rules. But
>I guess it is of a totally different type and to include it in this
>discussion would be like comparing apples and oranges.

Indeed game moves and language are very different types of things.  The number
of game moves in any position is very limited, and the skill is in choosing
those that constrain the game tree in a certain way.  Language is used quite
differently; it is *expressive*.  If you want to compare it to games, you
might want to look at *impressive* language, such as is used in advertising or
politics.  "I have lust in my heart.", "Read my lips: `No new taxes!'", "I
didn't inhale.", and "She's a bitch." may be syntactically correct (kinda
questionable in the Bush case) and semantically meaningful, but that doesn't
make them *good moves* (of course, that didn't stop Bush's speech writer from
going on to a lucrative career as an author and political pundit).




-- 
<J Q B>
