From owner-cse584-sp07-list@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Wed Mar 21 11:49:45 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 l2LFnj61011476 for ; Wed, 21 Mar 2007 11:49:45 -0400 (EDT) Received: from front2.acsu.buffalo.edu (warmfront.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.6.88]) by ares.cse.buffalo.edu (8.13.6/8.13.6) with SMTP id l2LFnXIt041009 for ; Wed, 21 Mar 2007 11:49:33 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 4024 invoked from network); 21 Mar 2007 15:49:33 -0000 Received: from mailscan4.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.136) by front2.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 21 Mar 2007 15:49:33 -0000 Received: (qmail 15675 invoked from network); 21 Mar 2007 15:49:33 -0000 Received: from deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.57) by front3.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 21 Mar 2007 15:49:33 -0000 Received: (qmail 16907 invoked from network); 21 Mar 2007 15:49:30 -0000 Received: from listserv.buffalo.edu (128.205.7.35) by deliverance.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 21 Mar 2007 15:49:30 -0000 Received: by LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 14.5) with spool id 3993064 for CSE584-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU; Wed, 21 Mar 2007 11:49:30 -0400 Delivered-To: cse584-sp07-list@listserv.buffalo.edu Received: (qmail 6344 invoked from network); 21 Mar 2007 15:49:24 -0000 Received: from mailscan3.acsu.buffalo.edu (128.205.6.135) by listserv.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 21 Mar 2007 15:49:24 -0000 Received: (qmail 10054 invoked from network); 21 Mar 2007 15:49:23 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.buffalo.edu (128.205.32.14) by smtp1.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 21 Mar 2007 15:49:23 -0000 Received: from castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (rapaport@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.10) with ESMTP id l2LFnNB5011438 for ; Wed, 21 Mar 2007 11:49:23 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from rapaport@localhost) by castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.13.6/8.12.9/Submit) id l2LFnNTx011436 for cse584-sp07-list@listserv.buffalo.edu; Wed, 21 Mar 2007 11:49:23 -0400 (EDT) X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-PM-EL-Spam-Prob: : 7% Message-ID: <200703211549.l2LFnNTx011436@castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU> Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 11:49:23 -0400 Reply-To: "William J. Rapaport" Sender: "Philosophy of Computer Science, Spring 2007" From: "William J. Rapaport" Subject: SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS To: CSE584-SP07-LIST@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-UB-Relay: (castor.cse.buffalo.edu) X-DCC-Buffalo.EDU-Metrics: castor.cse.Buffalo.EDU 1029; Body=0 Fuz1=0 Fuz2=0 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.0 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,SUBJ_ALL_CAPS autolearn=no version=3.1.7 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.7 (2006-10-05) on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.88.6/2892/Wed Mar 21 06:40:09 2007 on ares.cse.buffalo.edu X-Virus-Status: Clean Status: R Content-Length: 3052 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you want to read morea about my (somewhat idiosyncratic) views on the relations between syntax and semantics as discussed in today's lecture and in my two papers on implementation (which, by the way, was originally one long paper divided into two parts), you might take a look at these two: Rapaport, William J. (1988), "Syntactic Semantics: Foundations of Computational Natural-Language Understanding", in James H. Fetzer (ed.), Aspects of Artificial Intelligence (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers): 81-131. http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/Papers/synsem.pdf http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/Papers/synsem.original.errata.pdf Abstract: This essay considers what it means to understand natural language and whether a computer running an artificial-intelligence program designed to understand natural language does in fact do so. It is argued that a certain kind of semantics is needed to understand natural language, that this kind of semantics is mere symbol manipulation (i.e., syntax), and that, hence, it is available to AI systems. Recent arguments by Searle and Dretske to the effect that computers cannot understand natural language are discussed, and a prototype natural-language-understanding system is presented as an illustration. Rapaport, William J. (1995), "Understanding Understanding: Syntactic Semantics and Computational Cognition", in James E. Tomberlin (ed.), AI, Connectionism, and Philosophical Psychology, Philosophical Perspectives Vol. 9 (Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview): 49-88. http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/Papers/rapaport95-uu.pdf Abstract: John Searle once said: "The Chinese room shows what we knew all along: syntax by itself is not sufficient for semantics. (Does anyone actually deny this point, I mean straight out? Is anyone actually willing to say, straight out, that they think that syntax, in the sense of formal symbols, is really the same as semantic content, in the sense of meanings, thought contents, understanding, etc.?)." I say: "Yes". Stuart C. Shapiro has said: "Does that make any sense? Yes: Everything makes sense. The question is: What sense does it make?" This essay explores what sense it makes to say that syntax by itself is sufficient for semantics. And I discuss the notion of understanding a syntactic system "directly", without any semantic interpretation, in: Rapaport, William J. (1986), "Searle's Experiments with Thought", Philosophy of Science 53: 271-279. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248%28198606%2953%3A2%3C271%3ASEWT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-5 Abstract: A critique of several recent objections to John Searle's Chinese-Room Argument against the possibility of "strong AI" is presented. The objections are found to miss the point, and a stronger argument against Searle is presented, based on a distinction between "syntactic" and "semantic" understanding.