Russell Standish wrote:
> Modus ponens is only a formal manipulation of symbols, with no semantic > content. > I agree. Stathis Papaioannou Wrote: This is an argument John Searle has made. > Unfortunately yes. > The problem is, the brain can also be described as manipulating symbols > with no semantic content > Yes. > > > so where does semantic content come from? > From examples in the physical world. You can give as many botanical definitions of the word "tree" as you want but it will just be a word defined by other words that are themselves defined by yet more words that are.... If you tried to dig for meaning all you'd find is a endless loop, it would just be a game where words are manipulated according to the rules of botany until somebody forgot about definitions and pointed to the ASCII string "t-r-e-e" and then pointed to a large photosynthesizing organism made largely of cellulose that exists in the physical world. Then even a martian would notice a correspondence between this game of manipulating symbols called "botany" that humans had invented and the way these large photosynthesizing organism made largely of cellulose live. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
