Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!att!homxb!genesis!odyssey!gls
From: gls@odyssey.ATT.COM (g.l.sicherman)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: computers and symbols
Message-ID: <846@odyssey.ATT.COM>
Date: 30 Mar 89 16:40:43 GMT
References: <16186@cup.portal.com> <3564@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, West Long Branch, NJ
Lines: 32

In article <3564@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu writes:
> From article <16186@cup.portal.com>, by dan-hankins@cup.portal.com:
>  
> " ...  A computer is _not_ a device that does symbol crunching.  Only minds
> " can do this, as symbols are wholly in the domain of the mental. ...
> 
> When I compile a program, assembly language with symbols is produced,
> and the symbols are interpreted (dare I say 'understood'?) by an
> assembler.  Has my computer gone mental?  Am I misusing the
> term 'symbol'?  Or are you.

To a computer, the letters and numbers aren't symbols of anything--they're
reality.  More to the point, meaningless data symbolize nothing to the
computer's *users.*

It's important to remember that the user is part of the loop.  If a
computer has no users, is it a computer?

-:-
	
	A Principal Investigator said to his assistant: "I notice
	that you are not working."

	The assistant retorted, "The computer is not working today."

	PASK, overhearing them, commented: "Not the computer, not the
	assistant.  The man-machine interface is not working."

						--A. I. Koans
-- 
Col. G. L. Sicherman
gls@odyssey.att.COM