HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: holmes@garnet.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: Folk Theories of Meaning (was re: Theories of meaning not relying solely on sym)
Organization: Boise State University
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 16:28:30 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.134024.1624@sol.cs.wmich.edu> brewer@sol.cs.wmich.edu (Steve Brewer) writes:
>In article <1992Nov16.122343.17501@husc3.harvard.edu> 
>zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
>>
>>If you don't feel that being bound by
>>logic is a *moral* obligation, would you still have any basis for a
>>reasonable expectation that your tooting your car's horn at a bunch of
>>Samoan Hell's Angels does not *mean* your informed consent for them to
>>peel off your skin and rip out your heart?  Do you have a glimmer of
>>understanding that your human rights are not worth the market value of
>>the chemicals that comprise your anatomy, *if* there be no such things
>>as matters of fact about meaning?
>
>It seems to me that this statement mixes several immiscible issues.
>Let us remember that human rights are based on a *committment* to 
>logic.  We shouldn't believe that logic is fundamentally 'right' or
>something.

If you do not believe that it is fundamentally right, you are not
committed to it.

  Most evidence I've seen indicates that very few people
>use logic or fundamentally rational thinking for most
decision-making.

Perhaps not explicitly, but they do use it implicitly (when they are
making sensible decisions).

>Miriam Solomon's paper on scientific validation suggests that the human
>system, though illogical, may produce better results because of the
>way knowledge construction occurs as a distributed system of dispersed
>cognitive entities with different perspectives.  The system provides
>better for both diversity in the common conceptual ecology (if I can steal
>that term) and less duplication of effort.

What is the frame of reference in which he draws this conclusion?
I'll bet that it presupposes logic.

>
>Furthermore, remember that a committment to logic is a *western* ideal
>that is not going to be applicable in many areas of the world.  In 
>many places, doing something seemingly innocuous *would* result in
>having your skin peeled off.  Do you believe that a simple lack of 
>commitment to western logic makes these value systems bad or wrong 
>somehow?  I don't believe that such a viewpoint is supportable.

Yes, it makes them wrong.  Similar views held widely in the West
itself are also wrong.

>
>-- 
>Steven D. Brewer    brewer@cs.wmich.edu     *     99brewer@lab.cc.wmich.edu
>                Department of Science Studies,  Western Michigan University
>"Kiu regalas per ^stonoj, tiun oni dankas per bastonoj." D-ro L.L. Zamenhof


-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu
Xref: sparky sci.cognitive:690 sci.philosophy.tech:4180 sci.lang:8099 sci.philosophy.meta:2642
From: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.lang,sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Folk Theories of Meaning (was re: Theories of meaning not relying solely on sym)
Date: 19 Nov 92 19:38:10 GMT
Reply-To: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pyramid Technologies, Mt. View, California.

In article <1992Nov17.134024.1624@sol.cs.wmich.edu>,
brewer@sol.cs.wmich.edu (Steve Brewer) writes:
|> In article <1992Nov16.122343.17501@husc3.harvard.edu> 
|> zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
|> >
|> >If you don't feel that being bound by
|> >logic is a *moral* obligation, would you still have any basis for a
|> >reasonable expectation that your tooting your car's horn at a bunch of
|> >Samoan Hell's Angels does not *mean* your informed consent for them to
|> >peel off your skin and rip out your heart?  Do you have a glimmer of
|> >understanding that your human rights are not worth the market value of
|> >the chemicals that comprise your anatomy, *if* there be no such things
|> >as matters of fact about meaning?
|>

Our lives are not worth the market value of the chemicals which comprise
our anatomy.  Life is snuffed out constantly, without sentiment and for
no reason.  Each of us will go this way.  The issue, as I see it, is not
to go about letting our stupid, little logical egos tell us how
important we are, but to *get* how absolutely unimportant we are, and in
so doing, come to cherish each breath that continues us, for none are
guaranteed and our continued existence is largely beyond our control,
and mighty logic is utterly powerless to change that.

|> It seems to me that this statement mixes several immiscible issues.
|> Let us remember that human rights are based on a *committment* to 
|> logic.  We shouldn't believe that logic is fundamentally 'right' or
|> something.  Most evidence I've seen indicates that very few people
|> use logic or fundamentally rational thinking for most decision-making.
|> 

Quite right.  I might point out that human rights are base on a
comittment to human beings -- not to logic -- the underlying motivation
for which is quite illogical.  The system of arbitration by which the
rights are adjudicated is "somewhat" reasonable.

Reason can never tell you what is right or important, and there is no
such thing as a rational decision or rational behavior, since these must
accept as a premise that a particular outcome or particular constraint
is 'good' or 'important' and this can never be 'proved.'  I am far more
prone to use 'intuition' or 'intelligence' than logic which is
frequently worthless.

Logic and reason are fine.  No need to start deifying them.

Paul Collacchi
Xref: sparky sci.cognitive:638 sci.philosophy.tech:4112 sci.lang:8044 sci.philosophy.meta:2588
From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.lang,sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Folk Theories of Meaning (was re: Theories of meaning not relying solely on sym)
Date: 16 Nov 92 17:23:42 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Nov16.122343.17501
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <1992Nov16.125741.22619@news.Hawaii.Edu> 
lee@Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee) writes:

>Michael Zeleny (zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu) wrote:

>>cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:

>>>lee@Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee) writes:

GL:
>>>>Paraphrases are expressions that mean the
>>>>same thing, so there must be a thing that they mean, and once we've
>>>>found it, we'll know why they are paraphrases.

CM:
>>>Reification rides again! Why must there be such a thing? Why could not
>>>paraphrases be identifiable simply by a certain kind of transformation
>>>capable of turning one into another?

MZ:
>>This is a bogus objection, Chris. ...

GL:
>I didn't see Chris's followup, so I'm taking this opportunity to
>agree with him.  I was just kidding.  "Mean the same thing" is
>just a manner of speaking, perhaps reflecting some folk theory
>which, however, we're under no obligation to accept.

Who's that "we", kemosabe?  If you don't feel that being bound by
logic is a *moral* obligation, would you still have any basis for a
reasonable expectation that your tooting your car's horn at a bunch of
Samoan Hell's Angels does not *mean* your informed consent for them to
peel off your skin and rip out your heart?  Do you have a glimmer of
understanding that your human rights are not worth the market value of
the chemicals that comprise your anatomy, *if* there be no such things
as matters of fact about meaning?

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
" -- I shall speak bluntly, because life is short."
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.lang
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Theories of meaning not relying solely on sym
From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Date: 20 Nov 92 11:22:26 EST
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <RJC.92Nov19173454@daiches.cogsci.ed.ac.uk> 
rjc@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Caley) writes:

>In article <1992Nov18.134406.17573@husc3.harvard.edu>, 
>Michael Zeleny writes:

MZ:
>>You are not even close.  The point is that a *correct* and
>>*comprehensive* normative description will _ipso facto_ have full
>>descriptive adequacy. 

RC:
>And a contradiction implies anything, and if you hypothesise a
>completely implausible object you can ascribe whatever properties you
>like to it.

When Russell saw a contradiction in Frege's logicist program, he
produced a proof, instead of blowing hot air.  If your objections to
Montague's research program has any more weight than your subjective
judgment of implausibility, I would like to hear about it; otherwise
don't expect me to continue this exercise in futility by responding to
your inane and vacuous taunts.

MZ:
>>Ah, "philosophy at Harvard"... thank you for answering my query about
>>the state of scholarship at the University of Geneva [etc.]

RC:
>Ad hominem as `rationalism'. Hm, what a novel idea. Can we have
>sticking your tongue out at people as nominalism next. :-)

Richard, we have been at it long enough for you to overcome your
learning disability and realize that I only resort to _ad hominem_
remarks to reciprocate in kind.  By the way, I am still waiting for
you to come up with those artillery batteries you offered me over a
year ago.

>--
>rjc@cogsci.ed.ac.uk				_O_
>						 |<

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."

Xref: sparky sci.cognitive:726 sci.philosophy.tech:4204 sci.lang:8142
From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Theories of meaning not relying solely on sym
Date: 21 Nov 92 03:41:36 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Nov20.224137.17653
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <erwin.722217539@trwacs> 
erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin) writes:

>Unfortunately, the brain doesn't operate that way. Two statements are
>considered equivalent if their processing generates the same activation in
>the cerebral cortex (or a subset thereof). Since cortical activation is an
>analog process, distributed over multiple layers, and reflecting nonlinear
>dynamics at all scales, from the synaptic switching in the dendritic arbor
>on up, defining equivalence becomes somewhat problematical.

I discern several brazen counterfactual assumptions:
(i)	that mind states supervene on brain states;
(ii)	that understanding is a function of brain-state tokens;
(iii)	that physicalism allows a reduction of semantic primitives.
 
That "two statements are considered equivalent if their processing
generates the same activation in the cerebral cortex (or a subset
thereof)" is a social fact about your discipline, that says absolutely
nothing about the kind of equivalence involved.  In fact, identity or
similarity of activation patterns is a syntactic criterion by any
reasonable definition of syntax; likewise for the frivolous attribution
of synonymy as determined by similarity or identity of activations of
the frontal cortex.  Concerning your appeal elsewhere to the bizarre
notion of semantic grounding, as I told you in email, my inability to
conceive of any coherent theory thereof prevents me from imagining any
way to demonstrate it in primitive mammals, in the same way I would
believe you unable to demonstrate the holy nature of a self-professed
Himalayan yogi via lab measurements.

Physicalism depends on reducing semantics to physical primitives, or on
eliminating it altogether.  The former is logically impossible, as there
is no way to partition the causal structure of the physical universe, so
as to obtain the requisite "intentional stance".  In other words, there
is no coherent way to systematically differentiate the physicalist
universe into subject and object, as required for the representational
model which by definition underlies all extant conceptions of semantics.
"Grounding" is just a special case of this situation.  Reductionism is
the sole viable physicalist alternative; at this time I have no interest
in discussing its alleged merits.  Until you learn how to address this
point, instead of repeating _ad nauseam_ the same received ideas, I see
absolutely no reason to continue this exchange.  End of this discourse.

>Cheers,
>
>-- 
>Harry Erwin
>Internet: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com
>

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive
From: pautler@ils.nwu.edu (David Pautler)
Subject: the conjunction effect (was: Logic and stuff)
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 16:22:52 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.035416.23721@news2.cis.umn.edu>, frank@i1.msi.umn.edu (Loren Frank) writes:

> 	On a slightly related topic, when people are given the following
> scenario :Linda has been very active in social concerns for most
> of her life. During college she was involved in a number of organizations
> whose aim was to bolster the rights of the underrepresented. 
> People are then asked "which of the following is more likely:
> 1) Linda is a bank teller.
> 2) Linda is a bank teller and active in the feminist movement."
> People almost always choose 2) even though the likelyhood of a conjunction
> is always less than the likelyhood of one of the conjuncts.
> 
> I am not quite sure what that means, but it is true...

Several people have posted possible explanations for this phenomenon (the
conjunction effect).  The findings Loren refers to are from a paper by
Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman titled "Judgements of and by
representativeness", which appears in their book with Paul Slovic,
_Judgement under uncertainty_.  The authors offer another explanation
in the book, if folks are interested in following up on this.

If anyone knows of a computational model of Kahneman & Tversky's availability,
representativeness, and simulation heuristics, I'd like to hear about it.

	-dp-

Newsgroups: sci.cognitive
From: corruble@lpia6.ibp.fr (CORRUBLE Vincent)
Subject: Re: Logic and stuff
Reply-To: corruble@lpia6.ibp.fr (CORRUBLE Vincent)
Organization: Universite Paris VI/Paris VII
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 11:53:06 GMT

In article <BxwG6E.Evs@acsu.buffalo.edu>, rmr@acsu.buffalo.edu (Richard
M. Romanowski) writes:
|> frank@i1.msi.umn.edu (Loren Frank) writes:
|> (..)
|> >	On a slightly related topic, when people are given the following
|> >scenario :Linda has been very active in social concerns for most
|> >of her life. During college she was involved in a number of organizations
|> >whose aim was to bolster the rights of the underrepresented. 
|> >People are then asked "which of the following is more likely:
|> >1) Linda is a bank teller.
|> >2) Linda is a bank teller and active in the feminist movement."
|> >1) Linda is a bank teller.
|> >2) Linda is a bank teller and active in the feminist movement."
|> >People almost always choose 2) even though the likelyhood of a conjunction
|> >is always less than the likelyhood of one of the conjuncts.
|> 
|> >I am not quite sure what that means, but it is true...
|> 
|> 
|> 	I do not know anything, but I THINK it means that people don't
|> care about the bank teller part -- whether or not it is true is irrelevant
|> to them, because the part about feminism seems so intuitively correct.
|> 
|> 	Conclusion: confronted with a pattern that seems to reflect 
|> reality, people toss logic out the window, which is perhaps why we pretend
|> that math is unemptional.  If we believed it related to reality,
|> perhaps we would not be able to do it.
|> 
|> Luck
|> Rick

I think the way people perceive/understand the experiment is the reason
why they
think that 2 is more likely than 1
They hear
|> >1) Linda is a bank teller.
|> >2) Linda is a bank teller and active in the feminist movement."
but they perceive
|> >1) Linda is a bank teller and she is NOT active in the feminist movement.
|> >2) Linda is a bank teller and active in the feminist movement."
since this dichotomic question is much more common than a attribute with
a "don't know"
value.
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.lang
From: holmes@garnet.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: Theories of meaning not relying solely on sym
Organization: Boise State University
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 21:48:49 GMT

In article <1992Nov23.150539.14871@news.unige.ch> swann@divsun.unige.ch (SWANN Philip) writes:
>In article <1992Nov20.201258.17652@husc3.harvard.edu>, zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
>
>
>> 
>> Great.  Instead of promulgating my doctrinaire image, perhaps I can
>> ask you to elucidate your [censored] comments.  In what sense, and by
>> what kind of argument has the Whitehead and Russell (note the correct
>> order) claim that mathematics is reducible to logic been proved false?
>> What is its relation to the formalist program, and what is the
>> connection between the latter and Montague's proposal?
>
>As far as I know, the paradoxes in set theory and Goedel's work are generally
>accepted as showing that mathematics cannot be derived from logic

This is usually accepted, although it depends on exactly what you mean
by "logic".  If what is called "higher order logic" is logic, then
logicism succeeds, because higher-order logic is equivalent to the
theory of types, which is adequate for all practical mathematical
purposes.

 and
>set theory

This is ridiculous.  Mathematics is generally considered to be
derivable from set theory (ZFC) and most of the derivation is in
place.  The derivation of math from set theory (not logic) has
succeeded.



 - thus killing Hilbert's formalist programme.

_Non sequitur_.  Hilbert was not a logicist; he was a formalist.  The
collapse of Hilbert's program has nothing to do with success or
failure of the logicist claim.  The derivation of mathematics from set
theory (which has succeeded) is also irrelevant to Hilbert's program;
it has succeeded, not failed, but its methods are too strong to be
relevant to Hilbert's program. 

 It would appear
>that *formal* logic and set theory are actually simply just bits of
>mathematics with no special status. (I write this as a complete
amateur).

So I will forgive you.

>Why do you think that what won't work for math will work for natural language
>(which you believe to be just another formal language)?


>
>
>Philip Swann


-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.lang
From: swann@divsun.unige.ch (SWANN Philip)
Subject: Re: Theories of meaning not relying solely on sym
Organization: University of Geneva, Switzerland
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 09:20:16 GMT

In article <1992Nov16.120727.17500@husc3.harvard.edu>, zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:


> P.S.  Is anybody out there objecting to transitivity of synonymy?

I would object to the assumption that synonymy is a property of
human language. Trivially, if we believe that two expressions
"mean the same thing" then we have some meaningful criteria to
distinguish them and some reason for doing so and, unless you want
to multiply abstract entities endlessly, they therefore do not "mean
the same thing". More concretely, for any pair of human language
expressions that you claim to be synonymous in a given context, I
claim that I can produce another context in which they are not
synonymous. Finally, while genuine synonymes *might* exist as
transient phenomena in human language, surely one would quickly
be driven out by the other for simple reasons of efficiency (would
you want to keep two identical copies of the same procedure in
a program?).

Philip Swann

P.S Yes, of course I also object to such weird ideas as the
    transitivity of synonymy and meaning preserving transformations
    - insofar as you claim they apply to empirical phenemona in
    human language; in formal stuff you can do what you like and
    use any old labels you like. 
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.lang
From: brewer@sol.cs.wmich.edu (Steve Brewer)
Subject: Re: Theories of meaning not relying solely on sym
Organization: W M U Fako de Sciencaj Studoj
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 00:57:21 GMT

In article <1992Nov20.111124.17630@husc3.harvard.edu> 
zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:

] I see no reason to suppose that the salient contextual features are
] unique and irreproducible, in the sense you seem to suggest.

Therein lies the problem.  :-)

The previous poster was arguing (rightly, I would add) that for
any phenomenon, there are not simply n features.  Each observer
perceives a phenomenon from a different point in space and time and 
that this could (and almost certainly would) change the number of 
possible contextual features.  But even if that weren't true, there are 
still problems with your model.

Let us assume that only n features exist for a phenomenon.  For each 
individual that experiences this phenomenon let us assume that there 
are only q salient features (we can even number them:  Q(1)...Q(q)).  
Do you truly suppose that for everyone q is equal?  

Let us carry this one step further:

Let us imagine two individuals:  MZ and SB.  Both experience a
phenomenon with only n features.  For MZ there are q salient features
and for SB there are (through some incomprehensible coincidence)
also exactly q salient features.  Do you imagine that the sets of
these salient features [MZ:{Q(1)...Q(q)} and SB:{Q(1)...Q(q)}] are
identical?  I doubt one can show that they even intersect.

-- 
Steven D. Brewer    brewer@cs.wmich.edu     *     99brewer@lab.cc.wmich.edu
                Department of Science Studies,  Western Michigan University
"Kiu regalas per ^stonoj, tiun oni dankas per bastonoj." D-ro L.L. Zamenhof
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.lang
From: lee@Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee)
Subject: Re: Theories of meaning not relying solely on sym
Organization: University of Hawaii
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 12:57:41 GMT

Michael Zeleny (zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu) wrote:
: In article <28179@castle.ed.ac.uk> 
: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
: 
: >In article <1992Nov13.100925.2924@news.Hawaii.Edu> 
: >lee@Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee) writes:
: 
: GL:
: >>Paraphrases are expressions that mean the
: >>same thing, so there must be a thing that they mean, and once we've
: >>found it, we'll know why they are paraphrases.
: 
: CM:
: >Reification rides again! Why must there be such a thing? Why could not
: >paraphrases be identifiable simply by a certain kind of transformation
: >capable of turning one into another?
: 
: This is a bogus objection, Chris. ...

I didn't see Chris's followup, so I'm taking this opportunity to
agree with him.  I was just kidding.  "Mean the same thing" is
just a manner of speaking, perhaps reflecting some folk theory
which, however, we're under no obligation to accept.

Xref: sparky sci.cognitive:697 sci.philosophy.tech:4184 sci.lang:8106 sci.philosophy.meta:2649
From: rjc@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Caley)
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.lang,sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Commitment to logic; was ...
Date: 19 Nov 92 16:04:04 GMT
	<1992Nov17.214321.18500@psych.toronto.edu>
	<1992Nov18.164042.2001@athena.cs.uga.edu>
Organization: Human Communication Research Center
In-reply-to: mcovingt@aisun3.ai.uga.edu's message of 18 Nov 92 16:40:42 GMT

In article <1992Nov18.164042.2001@athena.cs.uga.edu>, Michael Covington (mc) writes:

mc> Of course it's contingent and is arrived at BY LOGICAL REASONING
mc> FROM PREMISES.  I never said it was analytic.

This can be said of anything for a weird enough logic, so the
assertion is a little trivial.

The problem is always to come up with a logic that will get you from
some reasonable premises to `if I walk in front of a bus I get very
thin' without ludicrous side effects, infinite numbers of frame
axioms, logical omniscience and all those other fun, fun, fun things
which give people headaches.  I ain't seen one advertised yet.

--
rjc@cogsci.ed.ac.uk			_O_
					 |<