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From: harwood@cvl.umd.edu (David Harwood)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: The symbol grounding problem - please start your own newsgroup
Message-ID: <2310@cvl.umd.edu>
Date: Wed, 1-Jul-87 10:02:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: cvl.2310
Posted: Wed Jul  1 10:02:28 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 2-Jul-87 04:39:37 EDT
References: <764@mind.UUCP> <768@mind.UUCP> <770@mind.UUCP> <6174@diamond.BBN.COM> <1200@houdi.UUCP> <950@mind.UUCP>
Reply-To: harwood@cvl.UUCP (David Harwood)
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Organization: Center for Automation Research, Univ. of Md.
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Xref: mnetor comp.ai:598 comp.cog-eng:169

In article <950@mind.UUCP> harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes:

[...replying to M.B. about something...]

>................................................ I do not see this
>intimate interrelationship -- between names and, on the one hand, the
>nonsymbolic representations that pick out the objects they refer to
>and, on the other hand, the higher-level symbolic descriptions into
>which they enter -- as being perspicuously described as a link between
>a pair of autonomous nonsymbolic and symbolic modules. The relationship is
>bottom-up and hybrid through and through, with the symbolic component
>derivative from, inextricably interdigitated with, and parasitic on the
>nonsymbolic.

	Uh - let me get this straight. This is the conclusion for your
most recent posting on "the symbol grounding problem." In the first
poorly written sentence you criticize to your bogeyman, saying he ain't
"perspicuous." Small wonder - you invent him for purposes of obsurantist
controversy; no one else even believes in him so far as I can tell.
	But wait - there is more. You say your bogeyman - he ain't
"perspicuous." (as if you aren't responsible for this) Then you go on
with what you consider, apparently, to be a "perspicuous" account of
the meaning of "names." So far as I can tell, this sentence is the most
full and "perspicuous" accounting yet, confirmed by everything you've
written on this subject (which I shall not need quote, since it is fresh
on everyone's mind). You say, with inestimatable "perspicuity," concerning
your own superior speculations about the meaning of names (which I quote
since we have all day, day after day, for this): "The relationship is
bottom-up and hybrid through and through, with the symbolic component
derivative from, inextricably interdigitated with, and parasitic on the
symbolic." A mouthful all right. Interdigitated with something all right.
	Could you please consider creating your own newsgroup, Mr. Harnad?
I don't know what your purpose is, except for self-aggrandizement, but
I'm fairly sure your purpose has nothing to do with computer science. There's
no discussion of algorithms, computing systems, not even any logical
formality in all this bullshit. And if we have to hear about the meaning of
names - why couldn't we hear from Saul Kripke, instead of you? Then we
might learn something.
	Why not create your own soapbox? I will never listen or bother.
I wouldn't even bother to read BBS, which you apparently edit - with
considerable help no doubt, except that you don't write all the articles
(as you do here).

-David Harwood