----- Original Message ----- From: "J Storrs Hall, PhD" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <agi@v2.listbox.com> Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 4:48 AM Subject: Re: [agi] Symbol Grounding
> Here's how Harnad defines it in his original paper: > > " My own example of the symbol grounding problem has two versions, one > difficult, and one, I think, impossible. The difficult version is: Suppose > you had to learn Chinese as a second language and the only source of > information you had was a Chinese/Chinese dictionary. The trip through the > dictionary would amount to a merry-go-round, passing endlessly from one > meaningless symbol or symbol-string (the definientes) to another (the > definienda), never coming to a halt on what anything meant. > The only reason cryptologists of ancient languages and secret codes seem to > be able to successfully accomplish something very like this is that their > efforts are grounded in a first language and in real world experience and > knowledge. The second variant of the Dictionary-Go-Round, however, goes far > beyond the conceivable resources of cryptology: Suppose you had to learn > Chinese as a first language and the only source of information you had was a > Chinese/Chinese dictionary! This is more like the actual task faced by a > purely symbolic model of the mind: How can you ever get off the symbol/symbol > merry-go-round? How is symbol meaning to be grounded in something other than > just more meaningless symbols? This is the symbol grounding problem." What if instead of having a Chinese/Chinese dictionary, you had a human being(s) that is/are grounded in the real world to teach you about Chinese? I would argue that even human beings require other intelligent human beings to become intelligent themselves. What if models of how the world works could be coded by "symbol grounded" humans so that, as the AGI learned, it could test it's theories and assumptions on these models without necessarily actually having a direct connection to the real world? Would this symbol grounding merry-go-round still apply? The real world connection and video image to symbol translation doesn't necessarily need to come first! Even with a good connection to the real world, I find it hard to believe that the relationships between things in the real world (the models) will be divinable any time soon. David Clark ----- 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=e9e40a7e
