X-Message-Number: 21672 Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 09:32:21 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #21385 - #21392 This is a reply to Bob Ettinger's message 21390, put on Cryonet some time ago: You point out that human beings also work with symbols. The point of what I was saying is not that we CAN work with symbols, but that we are not required to do so. Just like many animals without any language (or only a primitive one) we can directly respond to the world. A computer is required to work symbolically. As for the ability of computers hooked up to other machinery to act on the world, that too is possible --- so can a hammer, or a clock. However when computers act on the world, they must first pass their actions through the program they are running, which essentially is symbolic. That has turned out to be a basic problem in getting computers to act EFFECTIVELY on the world: too much time between their input and their output. Simpl sets of connected computers have turned out to be much more effective, because they are reacting more directly. And this passage through a program is NOT what happens when either we or animals respond to the world. We do not receive a stimulus, then think about how it is to be interpreted, decide that it is a painful stimulus, and react by saying "ow!" and (after working out what part of our body has received it) remove that part from the stimulus. The connection between stimulus reaction is much more direct. Pleasant stimuli have similar direct effects. Even if we made the computer connection faster, that would not remove the essential point that the computer is reacting symbolically to the world, while the world is not a symbolic entity --- and because of that no set of symbolic language can fully tell its important features. Mike Perry had comments to me in this issue of Cryonet, too, though I've dealt with many of them in earlier issues. I do have one addition, though: You claim that the world is fundamentally symbolic. What are your reasons for this claim? Please don't cite some philosopher: give your own reasons. In what way is the warmth of a fire symbolic? Or the beauty of a sunset, or the horror of a car crash? Best wishes and long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21672