Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnewsm!ele
From: ele@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (eugene.l.edmon)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: The Chinese Room and the Babylonian Bureaucracy
Summary: children don't learn semantics only from syntax
Message-ID: <8489@cbnewsm.ATT.COM>
Date: 12 Jan 90 01:52:40 GMT
References: <139@daedalus.nsc.com>
Reply-To: ele@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (eugene.l.edmon,lc,)
Distribution: usa
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 20

In article <139@daedalus.nsc.com> andrew@dtg.nsc.com (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head       ) writes:
>
>How can Searle assert that syntax in and of itself cannot give rise to
>semantics? An existence proof for the contradiction is there for all to see
>in (at least) every mentally normal human child. Isn't it really this
>simple?
>-- 

No, it isn't this simple. As children learn semantics they are not
picking it up from the syntax.  If you still think this I would
be interested in your further developing the argument.
In fact, it seems to make more sense to argue that children
learn semantics first as they learn words then how to string
them together in sentences.




-- 
gene edmon    ele@cbnewsm.ATT.COM