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From: marty1@houdi.UUCP (M.BRILLIANT)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: The symbol grounding problem: McCarthy's query
Message-ID: <1190@houdi.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Jun-87 14:03:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: houdi.1190
Posted: Fri Jun 26 14:03:26 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Jun-87 10:52:39 EDT
References: <764@mind.UUCP> <768@mind.UUCP> <770@mind.UUCP> <6174@diamond.BBN.COM> <915@mind.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel
Lines: 56
Summary: Still not clear what the discussion is about
Xref: mnetor comp.ai:577 comp.cog-eng:150

Will the proponents of the various views described below, and those
whose revelant views have not been described below, please stand up?

In article <915@mind.UUCP>, harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes:
> In article 208 of comp.ai.digest: JMC@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (John McCarthy)
> asks:
> 
> >	I imagine that the alleged point at issue and a few of the positions
> >	taken could be summarized .....
> 
> The point at issue concerns how symbols in a symbol-manipulative
> approach to the modeling of mind can be grounded in something other
> than more symbols so that their meanings and their connections to
> objects can be independent of people's interpretations of them.

> ..... One of
> the positions taken was that connecting a purely symbolic module to
> peripheral (transducer/effector) modules IN THE RIGHT WAY should be
> all you need to ground the symbols.

Caps mine. Position 1 is that the peripherals and the symbolic module
have to be connected in the right way.  Harnad's position is that

> .... a bottom-up hybrid nonsymbolic/symbolic system may be
> needed, one in which the elementary symbols are the names of sensory
> categories picked out by inductive (possibly connectionist) feature-filters
> (categorical representations) and invertible analogs of sensory projections
> (iconic representations).....

This looks like a way to connect periperals to a symbolic module. To
the extent that I understand it, I like it, except for the invertibility
condition.  If it's the right way, it's a special case of position 1. 
Harnad has called the "right way" of position 1 "top-down,"
"hard-wired," and other names, to distance himself from it.  I'm not
sure there are any real proponents of position 1 in such a narrow
sense.  I support position 1 in the wide sense, and I think Harnad does.

> ..... Other alternatives that have been
> mentioned by others in the discussion included: (1) symbol-symbol "grounding"
> is already enough ....

They don't care about the problem, so either they or we can go away. 
They (and I) want this discussion to go to another newsgroup.

> ..... and (2) connectionist nets already generate grounded "symbols."

Is that a variant of Harnad's position, i.e., "(possibly connectionist)"?

I think the real subject of discussion is the definition of some of the
technical terms in Harnad's position, and the identification of which
elements are critical and which might be optional?  Might some of the
disagreement disappear if the definitions were more concrete?

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