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Article 1568 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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AriZonA.EdU!bill
>From: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Zeleny (was Re: Searle
Message-ID: <1991Nov24.224724.2149@arizona.edu>
Date: 25 Nov 91 05:47:23 GMT
References: <1991Nov14.223348.4076@milton.u.washington.edu> <MATT.91Nov24000158@physics.berkeley.edu> <1991Nov24.195230.5843@husc3.harvard.edu>
Reply-To: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
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  I've been keeping quiet, hoping that this argument would simply
die out, but it doesn't seem inclined to do so, so here goes:

In article <1991Nov24.195230.5843@husc3.harvard.edu> 
zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>Pray tell, what part of the computer hardware or software could
>make it stand for something outside the machine, as signs used by humans
>stand for things in virtue of their meanings?
>

  The answer is quite simple.  Any computer interacting with the
world outside the machine is going to need symbols for things
outside the machine.  For example, a computer manipulating a
robot arm will have symbols for the parts of the arm and their
positions.  A computer playing chess will have symbols for the
pieces and their locations.

  Arguments such as Searle's and Penrose's and Zeleny's are 
essentially theological.  They all assume that humans have
one or another mystic power.  Penrose assumes that humans have
infallible intuitions for mathematical "truth".  Searle
assumes that human brains have unspecified "causal powers".
Zeleny assumes that humans are capable of infinite recursion
(which seems to be part of "denoting", as he defines it).

  I see no reason to think that humans are capable of any of
these things.  Zeleny says there is empirical evidence that
humans can "denote".  I wish he would give some of it.  Let
us please have one single concrete example, rather than this
haze of philosophical jargon.

	-- Bill

things


