On 27 October 2015 at 17:32, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > On 10/26/2015 2:16 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > > On Tuesday, 27 October 2015, John Clark < <[email protected]> > [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? > > > The observer's use of the word "tree" would have the semantic content of > referring to a (virtual) tree. > In effect, intrinsically meaningless symbols would bootstrap themselves into being meaningful, without reference to outside reality. -- 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.
