From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!wupost!psuvax1!psuvm!jpe1 Thu Apr 16 11:33:35 EDT 1992
Article 5002 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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Organization: Penn State University
Date: Wednesday, 8 Apr 1992 20:07:26 EDT
>From: <JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu>
Message-ID: <92099.200726JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: syntax and semantics
References: <92098.170625JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu>
 <1992Apr8.010858.5398@news.media.mit.edu> <92099.165657JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu>
 <1992Apr8.220700.12092@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Lines: 29

In article <1992Apr8.220700.12092@mp.cs.niu.edu>, rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil
Rickert) says:
>
>In article <92099.165657JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu> JPE1@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>>In article <1992Apr8.010858.5398@news.media.mit.edu>, minsky@media.mit.edu
>>(Marvin Minsky) says:
>>...
>>>It is _you_ who may interpret what it is doing as formal or precise.
>>
>>   Does this mean that you reject the isomorphism that many philosophers
>>find between computers and formal systems?  And if so, on what grounds?
>
>  I certainly do when it is doing numeric computations involving approximate
>arithmetic (as is done, for example, in the floating point unit).  To treat
>the computer in such a case as doing formal symbol manipulations is to reduce
>its task to something incredibly intricate and resource consuming, but
>without any purpose.

     The purpose is to distinguish between what the computer is actually
doing (i.e. what is actually happening inside the computer) and what kinds
of things _we_ do with the various states (say, output) of the computer
(i.e. how we interpret them).


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