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Article 2007 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: timc@minnie.cs.su.OZ.AU (Tim Brabin Cooper)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Syntax = Semantics
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Date: 10 Dec 91 03:19:23 GMT
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It seems to me that people on this newsgroup have hinted, but never 
voiced their true beliefs, that Syntax & Semantics are really the
same thing.  Actually, they are different aspects of the same thing,
(& hence there is a valid distinction there, just not a dichotomy),
but to discriminate the way some people do is, I believe, an error.


	There is no hard & fast line of demarcation between objects
that are purely syntactic, and objects that carry meaning. By setting
up certain syntactic rules, objects can implicitly carry meaning.
For example, you can set up the axioms of number theory in syntactic
form, but because of the roles the symbols play, they gain meaning
implicitly.


	No system can be 'purely syntactic'. Semantics always emerges.


			--oOo--

* Can anyone out there argue that in the above example, the symbols
  carry no meaning?  (A Challenge - not a rhetorical question.)

* In the Chinese Room example, opponents of Searle believe that in
  order for coherent behaviour to come out of the little room, there
  must be objects inside that represent actual concepts, and because
  these objects relate to each other in such a way, that they carry
  meaning. They do not have meaning written on the backs of their
  tablets, rather their meaning is intrinsic in the rules that
  manipulate them.

* According to my intuitive understanding of 'understanding', this
  is understanding. Let's not quibble about 'begging the question'
  - this issue comes down to definitions, doesn't it? If people
  could agree on a definition of 'understanding', they could agree
  about Searle. Perhaps the solution is to agree on two different
  words for the two definitions of 'understand'.

* Of course, it all comes down to the meaning of 'understanding'
  as used in everyday speech. A system with internal computational
  symbols has a mental life, that's why I think it 'understands'.


