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Article 1575 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle (was Re: Daniel Dennett (was Re: Comme
Message-ID: <1991Nov25.074801.5860@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 25 Nov 91 12:48:00 GMT
References: <1991Nov14.223348.4076@milton.u.washington.edu> <JMC.91Nov24194704@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Organization: Dept. of Math, Harvard Univ.
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Nntp-Posting-Host: zariski.harvard.edu

In article <JMC.91Nov24194704@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> 
jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:

>I'm puzzled about Zeleny's message addressed to my work, but I
>understand (assuming the Latin is just a decoration) where he says
>
>     A symbol is an iconic or a substitutive sign, something that
>     stands for something else, *aliquid stat pro aliquo*.  A C
>     function is a symbol standing for an assembly language
>     algorithm, and, eventually, for a sequence of machine
>     language instructions, in virtue of your system's compilers.
>     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?
>
>Let's start out simple.  The reading of a digital thermometer
>"stands for" the temperature.

>From the thermometer's standpoint, or just from your own?


'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`
`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'
: Qu'est-ce qui est bien?  Qu'est-ce qui est laid?         Harvard   :
: Qu'est-ce qui est grand, fort, faible...                 doesn't   :
: Connais pas! Connais pas!                                 think    :
:                                                             so     :
: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
: 872 Massachusetts Ave., Apt. 707                                   :
: Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139                                     :
: (617) 661-8151                                                     :
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'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`
`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'


