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Article 1869 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Zeleny (was Re: Searle
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Date: 4 Dec 91 17:43:24 GMT
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zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>forbis@milton.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis) writes:

>>It is not clear to me that the productions we call speech carry any meaning
>>other than than assumed by the listener.  I assume the productions are
>>intended to be meaningful and search for a meaning.  It is by alligning
>>the internal representations of the meaning I used last time I heard similar
>>productions within my worldview that lead me to produce the utterance "What
>>do you mean by 'meaningfully used in communication with those not enjoying
>>privileged access to our mental processes'?"

>It is completely clear to me that in writing these words I communicate with
>other people.  I assume that at least some members of my audience will
>treat my words as meaningful, and interpret them in a way that would
>result in certain mental states.  Since mental states are private, and
>hence mutually incomparable, I assume that to the extent that I succeed in
>conveying any meaning to these people, the nature of this meaning must be
>mind-independent.

I don't understand this.  You cast your words upon the waters, and hope
that some listeners try to make sense of them: fine.  Since mental states
are private, there is no way to check that the meaning they understand
is the same as the one you intend: fine.  But *therefore* it only makes
sense to talk about mind-independent meaning???

>>It is through interaction that I come to believe I know what others mean when
>>they say the words they say.  I see no reason to believe something could
>>produce the necessary behavior to indicate understanding without understanding.
>>I proceed on the assumption that differences in meaning will come to light
>>through continued use.

>If you persist in talking about "differences in meaning", you will thereby
>undermine your own subjectivist thesis.  Your point is not unlike that of
>the Logical Positivists, who attempted to reduce the language of science to
>observation sentences.  You will fail for the same reason they did.

I don't understand this either; it is possible to detect differences,
without ascribing an "objective" truth to any of the alternatives.  It
is possible to talk about "meaning for a person" without knowing
precisely what that meaning is, and accepting that any use of language
to try to convey that meaning is necessarily an imprecise approximation.
So you must mean something else? ( :-)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk      Computing Lab, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
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 "Happiness: a good account, a good compiler, and a good definition."


