Russell Wallace wrote: 
 
> Syntactic ambiguity isn't the problem. The reason computers don't 
> understand English is nothing to do with syntax, it's because they  
> don't understand the world.

 >  It's easy to parse "The cat sat on the mat" into 

 >  <sentence>
 >    <verb> sit </verb>
 >    <subject> cat </subject>
 >    <preposition> on </preposition>
 >    <object> mat </object>
 >    <tense> past </tense> 
 >  </sentence>

> But the computer still doesn't understand the sentence, because it 
> doesn't know what cats, mats and the act of sitting _are_. (The best 
> test of such understanding is not language - it's having the 
> computer draw an animation of the action.) 

Russell, I agree, but it might be clearer if we point out that humans
don't understand the world either. We just process these symbols within
a more encompassing context.

- Jef

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