X-Message-Number: 4009
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 23:38:04 -0800
From: John K Clark <>
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Symbols

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"Bruce Zimov" <> Wrote:

		  > Do we have to point out that the mechanism of
		  >the brain is not a convention? 
		  
All complex objects must have conventions or the parts could not
work together harmoniously.  By the way, who is the "we" you
were referring to?
		  
		 >Suggestion: Read Harnad.[...]  Read Quine 
		 
By mealy invoking  a wise man's name you do not magically gain
their wisdom, or is this name dropping supposed to impress me
with your vast learning? Two can play at that silly game,
Suggestion : Read Dennett, Read Smullyan, Read Hofstadter, Read
Minsky, Read Wilson. I've already read Quine have you? If you
can find a copy, look up "symbol" in the massive Merriam-Webster
New International Dictionary, second edition ,and see if my
definition was really as far off the mark as you say.       

		 >you tell us that changing the structure of a thing 
		 >realizes a symbol.
		  
Something must change when symbols are created  and if  symbols
are not " realized by changing the structure of a material
object" as I said ,what does change? The soul? God? Pixie dust?  

		 >Then, you say that bits or letters are tokens, i.e. syntax,
		 >whereas words are symbols,i.e. semantics. Wrongo.
		
Words symbolize something, letters do not. 
		
		 >Words are not the carriers of meaning.
		  
Well, as you have ably demonstrated, some combinations of words
are not carriers of meaning, no doubt about that.
		  
		 >The context of the speech act is required.
		 
And the context is the rules of language and the information
from our senses about the outside world. 
		 
	>Symbols  communicating! Now, there's a picture! 
		 
Read  Douglas Hofstadter's "Waking up from the Boolean dream"
especially the part entitled " Symbol triggering are the roots
of meaning" then read he's absolutely wonderful " Godel Escher Bach" , 
at least chapter 10 and 11 about active symbols. 

You should also read E.O. Wilson's " The Insect Societies", he's 
talking about ants in a colony not neurons in the brain but I
think it's a very good analogy, the brain as an ant colony.
Among other things he says mass communication " is defined as
the transfer , among groups, of information that a single
individual could not pass to another"  and that's just what
active symbols in the brain do. 
    
	>I will repeat my remarks on the subject
    

And I will not repeat my reply because saying  the same thing
in a louder voice does not make things more logical or persuasive.
Some things do not improve the second time around.
	  

			       John K Clark           

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