Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!dan-hankins
From: dan-hankins@cup.portal.com (Daniel B Hankins)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Question on Chinese Room Argument
Message-ID: <16873@cup.portal.com>
Date: 8 Apr 89 20:07:42 GMT
References: <10992@bcsaic.UUCP>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 26

In article <3564@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu 
(Greg Lee) writes:

>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.

     According to Webster, a symbol is an object that is used to represent
another object.

     The problem is with the representation relation, which the computer
does not embody.  No representation, no symbols.  A symbol that means
nothing is no symbol at all.


Dan Hankins

 There was a student who kept asking his Master, "What is the difference
 between syntax and semantics?"  Each time he asked, he got hit upside the
 head with the Master's staff.  Finally discouraged, he left and sought
 enlightenment with another Master, who asked him why he had left the
 previous teacher.  When the student explained, the second Master became
 furious: "Go back to your previous Master at once," he cried, "and
 apologize for not showing enough appreciation of his grandmotherly
 kindness!"