🚀 go-pugleaf

This is a single reply to multiple errors :-)

From article <Dec.10.11.48.06.1989.2717@elbereth.rutgers.edu>,
   by harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad): 
> As long as you allow yourself to interpret
> ungrounded symbols you'll keep coming up with "virtual reality."
> The only trouble is, what we're after is real reality (and that
> distinction is being lost in the wash). There's nobody home in
> a symbol cruncher ...

You omitted the first half of my posting, in which I pointed out that
there is nothing (that I know of) that precludes the possibility that
*we* might be simulated.  In that case, what is the difference between
real reality and virtual reality?

On a more general issue, this "problem of symbol grounding" seems
nothing more than a mantra that some people chant when they're faced
with arguments they can't deal with otherwise.  If the only thing that
distinguishes reality and virtual reality is that symbols are grounded
in one but not the other, what is the real difference?  I mean, what
observable effect does "grounding" the symbols have?  Does a system
begin behaving differently when symbols are grounded?  Would *we*
begin behaving differently if the entity that wrote our program suddenly
said, "My God! they're ungrounded!"?
-- 
Mike Coffin				mike@arizona.edu
Univ. of Ariz. Dept. of Comp. Sci.	{allegra,cmcl2}!arizona!mike
Tucson, AZ  85721			(602)621-2858