On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 10:11 PM, Abram Demski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote:
> > It doesn't, because **I see no evidence that humans can > > understand the semantics of formal system in X in any sense that > > a digital computer program cannot** > > I agree with you there. Our disagreement is about what formal systems > a computer can understand. (The rest of your post seems to depend on > this, so I will leave it there for the moment.) Actually our disagreement seems to be about the meanings of words like "exist" or "understand" To make things clearer for you, I'll introduce new words existP = exist pragmatically understandP = understand pragmatically I will say that A existPs iff there is some finite Boolean combination C of finite-precision observations so that C implies (A existPs) ~C implies ~(A existPs) Similarly, I will say that "A understandPs B" iff there is some finite Boolean combination C of finite-precision observations so that C implies (A understandPs B) ~C implies ~(A understandPs B) That is what I mean by "exist" and "understand" in a science and engineering context. In essence, this is Peircean pragmatism (more general than strict verificationism), as summarized e.g. at http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/PeircePr.htm#H4 What do you mean by the terms? -- Ben G ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
