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From: marty1@houdi.UUCP (M.BRILLIANT)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: The symbol grounding problem
Message-ID: <1204@houdi.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 3-Jul-87 08:43:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: houdi.1204
Posted: Fri Jul  3 08:43:39 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Jul-87 13:31:21 EDT
References: <764@mind.UUCP> <768@mind.UUCP> <770@mind.UUCP> <6174@diamond.BBN.COM> <958@mind.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel
Lines: 20
Summary: Humpty Dumpty on Lewis Carroll's wall
Xref: mnetor comp.ai:609 comp.cog-eng:178

In article <958@mind.UUCP>, harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes:
> On ailist cugini@icst-ecf.arpa writes:
> >	why say that icons, but not categorical representations or symbols
> >	are/must be invertible? Isn't it just a vacuous tautology to claim
> >	that icons are invertible wrt to the information they preserve, but
> >	not wrt the information they lose?... there's information loss (many
> >	to one mapping) at each stage of the game ...

In Harnad's response he does not answer the question "why?"  He
only repeats the statement with reference to his own model.

Harnad probably has either a real problem or a contribution to
the solution of one.  But when he writes about it, the verbal
problems conceal it, because he insists on using symbols that
are neither grounded nor consensual.  We make no progress unless
we learn what his terms mean, and either use them or avoid them.

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