[ExI] GPT-4 on its inability to solve the symbol grounding problem

Thu Apr 6 04:49:18 UTC 2023

Also this article. It uses a bunch of technical terms that are in the field
of linguistics and I understand them less than the mathematical and
geometrical terms that Wolfram uses but supposedly there are theories of
linguistics that say referents are not necessary for meaning.

https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/reference-without-referents/

There is a language without nouns or verbs:

https://academic.oup.com/book/26032/chapter-abstract/193927159?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Reality without Reference:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/42969748

Here from a philosophical point of view:

   -
   Email Mark Richard
   <richard4 at fas.harvard.edu>

Toggle author information panelAbstract
Most linguists and philosophers will tell you that whatever meaning is, it
determines the reference of names, the satisfaction conditions of nouns and
verbs, the truth conditions of sentences; in linguist speak, meaning
determines semantic value. So a change in semantic value implies a change
in meaning. So the semantic value a meaning determines is essential to that
meaning: holding contributions from context constant, if two words have
different semantic values they cannot mean the same thing. If this is
correct, then in a fairly straightforward sense reference is essential to
meaning. In this paper I argue that reference is not essential to meaning
by giving an example in which groups in different circumstances use a
phrase with the same meaning but a different reference.
Is Reference Essential to Meaning?
Authors:

   - Mark Richard
   Email Mark Richard
   <richard4 at fas.harvard.edu>

Toggle author information panel
AbstractMost linguists and philosophers will tell you that whatever meaning
is, it determines the reference of names, the satisfaction conditions of
nouns and verbs, the truth conditions of sentences; in linguist speak,
meaning determines semantic value. So a change in semantic value implies a
change in meaning. So the semantic value a meaning determines is essential
to that meaning: holding contributions from context constant, if two words
have different semantic values they cannot mean the same thing. If this is
correct, then in a fairly straightforward sense reference is essential to
meaning. In this paper I argue that reference is not essential to meaning
by giving an example in which groups in different circumstances use a
phrase with the same meaning but a different reference.
I mean all what it takes is to Google "Language without referents" and you
get hundreds of hits.
Giovanni

On Wed, Apr 5, 2023 at 9:31 PM Giovanni Santostasi <gsantostasi at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I wanted to study this project  and now after this discussion, I'm finally
> doing it:
>
> https://www.wolframphysics.org/
>
> I read the first few pages of the book and I finally found what I
> mentioned in my previous messages: a bootstrapping approach to building a
> language. Not only Wolfram is trying to build a language from very simple
> rules (often adding plenty of self-referential rules) but an entire
> freaking universe. It is able to create space and time. He is able to
> derive the invariance of relativity.
>
> So the issue if you can build a language from very simple rules and a few
> initial abstract objects like integers (and if you have an integer you have
> all of them) it is not an issue any longer given it seems you can build an
> entire universe from this protocol.
>
> Gordon, you should explore this website and maybe get the book so you can
> have a feeling of how this is done. It is all about relations and
> interactions between a few initial objects and rules on how to make updates
> on the relationships. This is exactly what the NLM do with their NNs and in
> fact what our brains do too.
>
> Every single experience, memory, idea, or word is a sort of graph or
> connected pattern in our brain. All that the brain cares about is the
> sequence of activation: neuron 2, followed by neuron 1, followed by neuron
> 5. That is a chair or whatever. Or at least some aspects of the chair,
> other connections, short and long across the brain create other
> associations like a chair being made of wood or being something you sit on.
>
> Meaning is built in relating this activation pattern to another activation
> pattern, for example knowing that a chair is smaller than a house and it
> can be inside a house or that a person (another activation pattern) can sit
> on the chair or the chair is made of wood (another activation pattern).
>
> To build meaning you don't need to know what wood is but simply that a
> chair is made of wood and wood is the material that threes are made of and
> threes are plants that are one of the forms of living beings and so and so
> on.
>
> At no point, you need to refer to any real object in the real world, all
> that you care about is the relations between these objects that can be
> identified by specific and unique activations patterns.  You can do this
> with particles and forces of nature and you can do this with a natural
> language like English. This is exactly what the NLMs have done. It is just
> a bunch of weights in a NN and activations patterns in these NNs, exactly
> like in our brains or in the universe.
>
> I don't understand how an intelligent person doesn't get this. I'm
> serious.
>
> Giovanni
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 5, 2023 at 8:49 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 5, 2023, 11:26 PM Gordon Swobe <gordon.swobe at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Frankly I am dumbfounded and flabbergasted that any intelligent person
>>> would question my statement  "Words mean things. In the absence of those
>>> things that they mean, they have no meanings."
>>>
>>
>>
>> "Words mean things" -- no disagreement here
>>
>> "In the absence of the things they mean, they have no meaning" -- This I
>> disagree with. If two English speakers survived while the rest of the
>> universe disappeared completely, the two speakers could still carry on a
>> meaningful conversation. Their words would still mean things to them. As
>> long as there's a brain with an appropriate wiring to process words and
>> comprehend the network of relations each word has with other words, there
>> will be meaning. Meaning exists within the mind of the speaker, the
>> presence or absence of an external universe is irrelevant from the point of
>> view of the mind (which for all it knows could be dreaming, deluded, or in
>> a vat or sim).
>>
>>
>> Jason
>>
>>
>>> How do you all think you communicate here on ExI or IRL? You use words
>>> that mean things to you and which you expect will mean very similar things
>>> to others. The word-symbols that you write or utter are merely the vehicles
>>> for the meanings. Words without meanings are no more than, well,
>>> meaningless nonsense.
>>>
>>> -gts
>>>
>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>
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