From owner-cse584-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Wed Apr 18 11:49:44 2007 Received: from ares.cse.buffalo.edu (ares.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.79]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l3IFni6B021420 for ; Wed, 18 Apr 2007 11:49:44 -0400 (EDT) Received: from front3.acsu.buffalo.edu (upfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.4.140]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l3IFncL3023362 for ; Wed, 18 Apr 2007 11:49:38 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 24283 invoked from network); 18 Apr 2007 15:49:38 -0000 Received: from mailscan6.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.95) by front3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 18 Apr 2007 15:49:38 -0000 Received: (qmail 24044 invoked from network); 18 Apr 2007 15:49:37 -0000 Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) by front3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 18 Apr 2007 15:49:36 -0000 Received: (qmail 1112 invoked from network); 18 Apr 2007 15:49:28 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 18 Apr 2007 15:49:28 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 4824273 for CSE584-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Wed, 18 Apr 2007 11:49:28 -0400 Delivered-To: CSE584-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Received: (qmail 8121 invoked from network); 18 Apr 2007 15:49:28 -0000 Received: from mailscan6.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.95) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 18 Apr 2007 15:49:28 -0000 Received: (qmail 27578 invoked from network); 18 Apr 2007 15:49:27 -0000 Received: from pollux.cse.buffalo.edu (128.205.35.2) by smtp1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 18 Apr 2007 15:49:27 -0000 Received: from pollux.cse.buffalo.edu (ag33@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pollux.cse.buffalo.edu (8.12.10+Sun/8.12.9) with ESMTP id l3IFnRKF005602 for ; Wed, 18 Apr 2007 11:49:27 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from ag33@localhost) by pollux.cse.buffalo.edu (8.12.10+Sun/8.12.8/Submit) id l3IFnQjP005601; Wed, 18 Apr 2007 11:49:26 -0400 (EDT) References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-UB-Relay: (pollux.cse.buffalo.edu) X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 11:49:26 -0400 Reply-To: Albert Goldfain Sender: "Philosophy of Computer Science, Spring 2007" From: Albert Goldfain Subject: Re: comments on syntactic semantics To: CSE584-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU In-Reply-To: Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (pollux.cse.buffalo.edu) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1029; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.5 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/3120/Wed Apr 18 09:00:32 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: R Content-Length: 3931 Ok...I found some typos in the original...read new post below: On Wed, 18 Apr 2007, Albert Goldfain wrote: > Just a few things I found interesting and jotted down during the syntactic > semantics slideshow in class: > > (1) On internalization as a union of markers and meanings > > In syntactic semantics, a syntactic domain of markers S and a semantic > domain of meanings S' is unioned to form a set S'' (= S U S') of > *markers*. > > The presupposition is that members of S' (i.e., meanings) can serve as > markers in S'' (I actually believe that, once internalized, they can). > But this does not follow from just a set theoretic union. Consider: > > Let R be the set of characters in the roman alphabet {a,b,...,z} > Let G be the set of characters in the greek alphabet {alpha,beta,...omega} > > It is not the case that R U G is a set of characters in the roman > alphabet...the kinds of things in the new set are not the same. I believe > the fancy mathy way of saying this is that the roman alphabet is not > closed under union with arbitrary alphabets. > > Thus, I believe a hidden premise of the union approach to internalization > is that internalized meanings *are* markers (i.e., suitable to be the sort > of thing syntax forms relations between). This is an interesting issue > in AI researc (google "symbol grounding problem" for some approaches to > internalization). > > (2) On delayed solipsism and latent understanding > A cognitive agent may have a sensory input that yields an association > between the term "tree" and the internalized representation of the tree > (height, color, etc)... let's just label this association > > ("tree", internalized(tree)) > > Importantly, both elements in this ordered pair are *markers*. > Now suppose some agent A has made this association but then loses its > sensory input entirely. Well it still has the association ("tree", > internalized(tree))...so it still has a syntactic semantics for "tree". > But what is to distinguish this from another agent B that was always > solipsistic and has a hard-coded association > > ("tree",fake-internalized(tree)) > > ...both are just relations between markers? Does agent B also have a > syntactic semantics for "tree"? > > (yes, I do note the resemblance between agent A and Hellen Keller :)). > > (3) On multiple realizability of cognition > Just something interesting to point out. Since multiple realizability > relies on two steps: (a) abstracting A from I, and (b) re-implementing I' > from A, there are two "points-of-failure" for realizing cognition in a > computational agent: (a) the abstraction of cognition from human cognition > was not a good one (and that is for cognitive scientists to decide). and > (b) the abstraction of cognition from human cognition was okay but the > re-implementation of cognition in a computational agent was not a > good one(and that is for AI researchers to decide). > > It had not occured to me that this might fail because of failed (or weak) > abstractions (i.e., someone else to blame other than AI researchers :-P). > > best abstract of cognition > / \ > / \ > / \ > / \ > / \ > stronger abstract \ > / \ \ > / \ \ > weak abstract of cognition \ > / \ \ \ > / \ \ \ > human cognition weak Impl stronger Impl best Impl > > (4) Methodological solipsism and contex-independent sense > If we take the viewpoint of methodological solipsism can we even keep > talking about a context-independent sense? What does a methodological > solipsist think an ontologist studies? >