<div dir="ltr"><div><br></div>Hi William,<br><div>Not sure what you are asking about with that "Huh?"</div><div>Perhaps you can tell me what you think a quality is. That should help me understand what you are asking.</div><div>Would you agree that a physical quality (whatever you think it is) is the referent of the word 'redness"?</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Mar 26, 2023 at 3:29 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><div dir="auto" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:small"><div dir="auto" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">But a picture dictionary doesn't work for an abstract system, since all they have for their knowledge of the picture is yet another abstract word like redness. brent</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><br></div><div><font face="comic sans ms, sans-serif">Huh? Can't use an example of redness? ??? Also, to increase stimulus generalization, you would include several photo examples. Many words which have an abstract use also have concrete examples, such as 'floor'. </font><span style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif">I can see it will have trouble with honesty or love. </span><span style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif"> bill w</span></div></div><div style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;outline:none;padding:10px 0px;width:22px;margin:2px 0px 0px;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:small"><div id="m_-5849365398334402893gmail-:av" role="button" aria-label="Show trimmed content" aria-expanded="false" style="background-color:rgb(232,234,237);border:none;clear:both;line-height:6px;outline:none;width:24px;border-radius:5.5px"><img src="https://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/images/cleardot.gif" style="background: url("https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/-fVY1HwkDI2TRddjcnqXIagY845ilzsCJq9dVCBty-gBAonmIYIUxqcCwkY2wi68PXSleZhvLnaTDNGl1o01Wry4qo8Xg3U1PL0zhV5u7cdlbAcl2nmVr3uL2R_W1e-rZShfY8_sBQ=s0-d-e1-ft#https://www.gstatic.com/images/icons/material/system_gm/1x/more_horiz_black_20dp.png") 50% 50% / 20px no-repeat; height: 11px; opacity: 0.71; width: 24px;"></div></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Mar 26, 2023 at 3:02 PM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto"><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Your referent for the word redness is the subjective quality your brain uses to represent red knowledge.</div><div dir="auto">So, a picture of red in a dictionary works for you, as your brain produces a redness experience when you look at it.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">But a picture dictionary doesn't work for an abstract system, since all they have for their knowledge of the picture is yet another abstract word like redness.</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 10:57 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)">I won't argue what a referent means.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(0,0,0)">I agree. It is just what John would say but in different words: he would emphasize, as I do, that for definitions you need examples, and that is why I, tongue not totally in cheek, wrote that you should give an AI a picture dictionary. bill w</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Mar 25, 2023 at 3:41 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Reading these conversations over the last few days, it has struck me <br>
that some people keep referring to 'real' things, usually using the word <br>
'referents' (e.g. an apple), as though our brains had direct access to <br>
them and could somehow just know what they are.<br>
<br>
But we don't.<br>
<br>
Think about it, what is "An Apple"?<br>
<br>
It's a term that we associate with a large set of sensory and memory <br>
data, including language data, but mostly things like visual, textural, <br>
taste, smell, emotional, etc., data stored as memories.<br>
<br>
Seeing as we all have different memories associated with the label "An <br>
Apple" (because some of us were sick the first time we ate one, some of <br>
us are allergic to something in apples, some of us have a greater <br>
impression of sweetness, or sourness, when we eat one, some of us once <br>
discovered a maggot in one, some people have only ever eaten Granny <br>
Smiths, others only Braeburns, or Crab Apples, and so on and so on...), <br>
then 'An Apple' is a different thing to each of us.<br>
<br>
There is no spoon! Er, Apple. There is no Apple!<br>
Not as a 'real-world thing'.<br>
<br>
"An Apple" is an abstract concept that, despite the individual <br>
differences, most of us can agree on, because there are a lot of common <br>
features for each of us, such as general shape, some common colours, a <br>
set of smells and tastes, how we can use them, where we get them from, <br>
and so on.. The concept is represented internally, and communicated <br>
externally (to other people) by a linguistic label, that refers, for <br>
each of us, to this large bunch of data extracted from our senses and <br>
memories: "Una Manzana".<br>
<br>
It's all 'nothing but' Data. Yet we all think that we 'understand' what <br>
an Apple is. Based purely on this data in our brains (because we have <br>
access to nothing else).<br>
<br>
So this idea of a label having 'a referent' seems false to me. Labels <br>
(data in our heads) refer to a big set of data (in our heads). Where the <br>
data comes from is secondary, diverse, and quite distant, when you trace <br>
the neural pathways back to a large and disparate set of incoming <br>
sensory signals, scattered over space and time. The meaning is created <br>
in our minds, not resident in a single object in the outside world.<br>
<br>
This is my understanding of things, anyway.<br>
<br>
Ben<br>
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