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From: dredick@bbn.com (Barry Kort)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Some thoughts on the Searle controversy
Summary: Semantic breakthroughs.
Keywords: Symbols and their referants.
Message-ID: <58196@bbn.BBN.COM>
Date: 13 Jul 90 21:05:25 GMT
References: <601@ntpdvp1.UUCP> <4977@milton.u.washington.edu>
Sender: news@bbn.com
Reply-To: bkort@BBN.COM (Barry Kort)
Organization: BBN Labs (Cambridge, MA)
Lines: 15

In article <4977@milton.u.washington.edu> forbis@milton.u.washington.edu
(Gary Forbis) writes:

 > If semantics exist somewhere else they cannot be communicated.

 Semantics can be quite hard to communicate.  Recall the scene in
 the Hellen Keller story where her teacher finger-spells "w-a-t-e-r"
 and then plunges the girl's hand into a cold stream?  Up until that
 time, finger-spelling was just a meaningless game of symbol manipulation.
 Once Helen got the idea that symbols stood for something, her education
 took off like a rocket.

Barry Kort                       bkort@bbn.com
Visiting Scientist
BBN Labs