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    Carmelics

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    Made withinDC&Austin
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Computers cannot understand natural language sentences they receive or output.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Computer programs operate purely syntactically, responding only to the physical form of symbol strings, not their meaning.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Understanding requires associating meanings with words or signs, not merely processing their physical form.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.Syntax is not sufficient for, nor constitutive of, semantics.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Intentionality—the 'aboutness' of mental states—is an intrinsic biological feature of minds, not derivable from formal symbol manipulation (Searle 1983).
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Derived intentionality assigned by programmers to computational outputs is categorically distinct from the original intentionality required for genuine understanding.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.No formal syntactic process can bootstrap itself into possessing intrinsic semantic content, since form and meaning belong to ontologically distinct categories.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Understanding a sentence requires knowing what it would be like for its truth conditions to obtain, which presupposes embodied, causal engagement with the world (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations §201).
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Digital computers manipulate uninterpreted symbol tokens whose causal connections to worldly referents are entirely parasitic on human interpretation external to the system.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.A system whose semantic grounding depends wholly on external interpreters cannot be said to understand on its own terms, any more than a book understands its contents.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

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