🚀 go-pugleaf

kck@g.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Karl Kluge) of Carnegie-Mellon University wrote:

> Are we to suppose that you can impose an interpretation on the symbols
> such that they form both a coherent conversation in Chinese *and* a
> legal and coherent chess game?

Your point about there not necessarily being more than one coherent
interpretation of a symbol system is correct. (In fact, I've made the
point myself in print, about both the alleged "radical
underdetermination" of language translation (Quine/Goodman) -- in which
it is supposed, without proof, that meanings can be swapped willy nilly
while preserving a coherent overall semantic interpretation -- and
about "spectrum inversion" -- in which subjective quality is imagined
to be similarly swappable, say, green looking red and vice versa, again
on the assumption that the psychophysics, discourse and behavior could
be coherently preserved under the transformation.)

To assume that such swaps are possible (always, sometimes, or even
ever) is equivalent to assuming that there exist semantic (or
behavioral) "duals," very much like mathematical duals such as not/and
vs. not/or in the propositional calculus. There is neither proof nor
evidence to support such an assumption except in particular formal
cases, such as the nonstandard interpretations of arithmetic.

However, Searle's point does not depend on this assumption! He's not
claiming that the alternative interpretations would be COHERENT; he's
only reminding us that projecting an interpretation is clearly all
that's involved -- in either the coherent or the incoherent case. The
difference is subtle, but crucial to understanding Searle's (perfectly
valid) point.

Stevan Harnad
-- 
Stevan Harnad  Department of Psychology  Princeton University
harnad@confidence.princeton.edu       srh@flash.bellcore.com
harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu    harnad@pucc.bitnet    (609)-921-7771