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Article 5116 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: What counts as the "Right" functional organization?
Message-ID: <1992Apr15.231022.18565@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: 15 Apr 92 23:10:22 GMT
References: <1992Apr14.142239.7807@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Apr14.181138.8475@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1992Apr15.192007.22672@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Lines: 33

In article <1992Apr15.192007.22672@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>In article <1992Apr14.181138.8475@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>>                                       But once you pin it to terms such
>>as 'belief' or 'understanding' or 'semantics' you run into the problem of
>>these terms not being sufficiently well defined, and the discussion will
>>quickly degenerate into arguments about issues that are not really central.
>
>"Not being sufficiently well defined" for what?  If you don't know what
>the terms really mean, then how can you possibly claim to have a theory
>of how they are produced?  How would you know when you are successful?

 I suspect the way I use the term "understanding" in a very similar to the way
you use it, and the meaning I associate with "understanding" is quite similar
to the meaning you have.  If I were asked to define "understanding" I would
have to refuse on the grounds that I don't know what it is.  If I recall
correctly, whenever you are asked, you too refuse to give a definition,
although your explanation may be more like 'since we all agree on the
meaning, it is pointless to define it'.  Regardless of the reason given,
the fact remains that discussions on this newsgroup have not provided
any clear and generally accepted definition of "understanding";  therefore
the term is not sufficiently well defined.

 Let me put it in other terms.  If you claim that "semantics" is well defined,
I would have to interpret that as an concession that the CR argument is bunk.
For, as far as I am concerned, it ain't well defined if you don't know how
to implement it.  I think this is R. Hamming's idea of understanding - you
don't truly understand something unless you can program a computer to do it.

-- 
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  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940


