"capitalism complement democracy"- it took your brain 13-20 years to be able
to understand the above sentence. Much much more than it takes a child to
understand "blue and red look nice together"... [blue complements red]. Your
brain had to build up a vast relevant picture tree to understand that
sentence.
The progress might have been roughly like this: first you had to look around
your neighbourhood and towns and factories before you could undestand a
concept like "society". And you had to see shops which were owned by
ordinary individuals and shops which were owned by the government, to
understand the difference between say "capitalist" society and
"totalitarian" society. And you had to see people voting to understand
"democracy."
And you had to see in reality or pictures, towns/ parts of society getting
richer and new and more shops springing up to understand "social progress" -
and connect that with "capitalist society". (and capitalist society making
for more progress).
And you also had to see from personal experience a complex scenario in which
when a person is given more choice, they start wanting still more things:
"well, if I can have this... why can't I have that too?" And then you had
to make the connection that when people are given more choice in shops, they
want more choice re government.
And.. by now you should get the idea.
The road any individual takes to understanding the above sentence will be v.
different from others', but each road will be based on their experience of
real societies, and shops, and governments and voting etc.
And the all-important thing here is that if you want to TEST or question the
above sentence, the only way to do it successfully is to go back and look at
the reality. If you wanted to argue, "well look at China, they're rocketing
with unbridled capitalism but v. little democracy, so maybe the two don't go
together"... the only way to carry that argument through is to go and LOOK
at China.
Of course, lazy people - philosophers - have always wanted to do it all -
advance knowledge - by just playing with words - but it doesn't work.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Derek Zahn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <agi@v2.listbox.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 2:32 PM
Subject: Re: [agi] MONISTIC, CLOSED-ENDED AI VS PLURALISTIC, OPEN-ENDED AGI
Mike Tintner writes:
It goes ALL THE WAY. Language is backed by SENSORY images - the whole
range.
ALL your assumptions about how language can't be cashed out by images and
graphics will be similarly illiterate - or, literally, UNIMAGINATIVE.
I don't doubt that the visual and other sensory systems are
of great importance, but I wonder how useful it is to say that
a sentence like "Capitalism complements democracy" gets
much of its meaning from images. Sure, the words will
cause sensory associations (capitalism perhaps causing a
flash on a dollar bill, democracy maybe some imagined
meeting of the continental congress), but those seem pretty
far removed from any useful reasoning we would do about
whether that sentence is right or wrong or interesting.
Grounding "symbols" is really really important, but it
isn't the whole story.
-----
This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email
To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to:
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&;
--
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.467 / Virus Database:
269.6.2/782 - Release Date: 01/05/2007 02:10
-----
This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email
To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to:
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=231415&user_secret=fabd7936
