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From: marty1@houdi.UUCP (M.BRILLIANT)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: The symbol grounding problem
Message-ID: <1163@houdi.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 12-Jun-87 17:36:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: houdi.1163
Posted: Fri Jun 12 17:36:13 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Jun-87 01:38:58 EDT
References: <764@mind.UUCP> <768@mind.UUCP> <770@mind.UUCP> <6174@diamond.BBN.COM> <6521@diamond.BBN.COM>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel
Lines: 29
Keywords: icons, categories, symbols, grounding, modularity, cognition
Summary: Recap, please: what does "purely symbolic" mean? a straw man?
Xref: mnetor comp.ai:546 comp.cog-eng:134

In article <6521@diamond.BBN.COM>, aweinste@Diamond.BBN.COM (Anders Weinstein) writes:
> ....
> 	(A) The symbols in a purely symbolic system will always be 
> 	    ungrounded because such systems can't generate real performance;
> ...
> It seems to me that .... thesis (A) is the one that makes perfect
> sense ....
> 
> ..... I think it's perfectly reasonable to suspect that the
> symbolic approach is insufficient to produce full human performance....

What exactly is this "purely" symbolic approach?  What impure approach
might be necessary?  "Purely symbolic" sounds like a straw man: a
system so purely abstract that it couldn't possibly relate to the real
world, and that nobody seriously trying to mimic human behavior would
even try to build anything that pure.

To begin with, any attempt to "produce full human performance" must
involve sensors, effectors, and motivations.  Does "purely symbolic"
preclude any of these?  If not, what is it in the definition of a
"purely symbolic" approach that makes it inadequate to pull these
factors together?

(Why do I so casually include motivations?  I'm an amateur actor.  Not
even a human can mimic another human without knowing about motivations.)

M. B. Brilliant					Marty
AT&T-BL HO 3D-520	(201)-949-1858
Holmdel, NJ 07733	ihnp4!houdi!marty1