[ExI] Semiotics and Computability (was: The digital nature of brains)

[Stathis Papaioannou]

2010/2/4 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>:
> On 4 February 2010 12:15, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I'm not completely sure what you're saying in this post, but at some
>> point the string of symbol associations (A means B, B means C, C means
>> D...) is grounded in sensory input.
>
> Defined as?

Input from the environment. "Chien" is "hund", "hund" is "dog", and
"dog" is the furry creature with four legs and a tail, as learned by
English speakers as young children.

>> Searle would say that there needs
>> to be an extra step whereby the symbol so grounded gains "meaning",
>> but this extra step is not only completely mysterious, it is also
>> completely superfluous, since every observable fact about the world
>> would be the same without it.
>
> Which sounds pretty equivalent to saying that it does not exist, if one
> accepts that one's "world" is simply the set of all observable phenomena,
> and that a claim pertaining to the existence of something is meaningless
> only if it can be disproved.

Yes, or you could create undetectable entities like this whenever the
fancy took you.

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou