Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!rutgers!mcnc!rti!ntpdvp1!kenp
From: kenp@ntpdvp1.UUCP (Ken Presting)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Some thoughts on the Searle controversy
Summary: Programming languages must have learnable semantics
Message-ID: <603@ntpdvp1.UUCP>
Date: 16 Jul 90 15:51:50 GMT
References: <601@ntpdvp1.UUCP> <4977@milton.u.washington.edu>
Organization: SNA Solutions Inc., Contract Programming Group
Lines: 47

In article <4977@milton.u.washington.edu>, forbis@milton.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis) writes:
> In article <601@ntpdvp1.UUCP> kenp@ntpdvp1.UUCP (Ken Presting) writes:
> >If you believe:
> >
> >1. Programs are just syntax (or just mechanical)
> >2. Syntax is not a sufficient condition for semantics
> >3. Semantics is a necessary condition for intelligence
> >
> >then you have no choice but to accept Searle's conclusion.   For my own 
> >part, I deny (1).  I think that programs have semantics as well as syntax.
> 
> 
> I find 2 questionable.  I learn about computer languages by reading the
> manuals.  All of the information I gain from the manuals has been presented
> syntactically.  If semantics exist somewhere else they cannot be communicated.
>

I'm glad you brought up the issue of learning a programming language, becaue
that is a good way to clarify the issues behind the Chinese Room..

(2) does NOT say that semantic information cannot be communicated by using
syntax - that is, by generating and transmitting strings of symbols.  It only
says that semantics requires something in addition to syntax.

In the case of computer languages, the "extra information" is usually smuggled
in.  When a programmer's reference gives a table of algebraic operators, and
says:

         +        addition
         *        multiplication
         /        division

is the manual simply identifying the symbols, or is it specifying the meaning
of the symbols?  I think it's doing both.

The most important case (for present purposes) of semantic information in
programmer's references is in the character encoding scheme.  *Letters*,
printed on the page or displayed on the screen, are *physical objects with
meaning*.  IMO, when a program uses literal strings, those expressions
denote *linguistic entities*.  The literals can't just denote shapes of
dots, because a variety of different shapes can represent any letter.

So the program is not just "pure syntax" - at least some of the expressions
in the program have the same meaning as ordinary English expressions.


Ken Presting  ("My programs are not meaningless - sorry about yours")