<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Dec 16, 2009, Gordon Swobe wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div><blockquote type="cite">If you or Stathis can show me a coherent scientific theory that explains how a mountain of empty beer cans squirting neurotransmitters into the spaces between themselves will constitute a mind capable of overcoming the symbol grounding problem then I'll promote the idea to something better than "highly speculative hypothesis".</blockquote></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Hey, you forgot the toilet paper! Obviously even in theory you couldn't make an intelligence out of beer cans alone because.... because.... because..., well just because. But toilet paper is another matter entirely, after all, punch cards are also made of paper and they overcome the symbol grounding "problem".</div><div><br></div><div> John K Clark</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><br></body></html>