On Tuesday, 27 October 2015, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote:
> 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. > What about a virtual world with trees and observers, and no I/O devices connecting it to outside trees? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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.
