Meaning - A Philosophical Interlude

'Twas   brillig,     and       the         slithy toves
   Did     gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All     mimsy     were the borogoves,
   And the mome raths outgrabe,

Jabberwocky

THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS
Lewis Carroll

 

 

cogito ergo sum

Rene Descartes' (1596 -1650 )

His philosophical system of thought was based on the fundamental idea : cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am) which grew out of the notion that there is a basic division between mind and matter.

 

Consciousness seems to me to be such an important phenomenon that I simply cannot believe that it is something just 'accidentally' conjured up by a complicated computation. It is the phenomenon whereby the universe's very existence is made known.

Some of the arguments that I have given is these chapters may seem tortuous and complicated. Some are admittedly speculative, whereas I believe that there is no real escape from some of the others. Yet beneath all this technicality is the feeling that it is indeed 'obvious' that the conscious mind cannot work like a computer, even though much of what is actually involved in mental activity might do so.

The Emperor's New Mind
Roger Penrose
1989

What Penrose seems to be saying is that the manipulations of 1's and 0's that are at the heart of computer calculations do not constitute what we understand as consciousness, no matter the speed of the processors or the aggregate number of them. Penrose, a world-renowned physicist, is on solid ground! In part, he bases his opinion on the fact that the Mind lives in the world of quantum mechanics which is very different than the classical, deterministic world of today's digital computers.

We have by now, fairly substantial evidence that one of the components of the mind/brain is a language faculty, dedicated to language and its use - where by "language," now, we mean human language, not various metaphoric extensions of the term.

Noam Chomsky

Chomsky believes that A child is supposed to be biologically endowed with a universal grammar (UG), which consists of a limited number of principles and parameters.

What is the purpose of this Interlude? The answer is to put an issue that has grown in importance since the inception of Internet programming." The difference between information processing and data processing.

The following terms and provisional definitions are meant to capture Penrose's ideas and will be used throughout this course.

Semantic or Content:

The underlying "real world meaning" of computer data.

Syntax or Grammar or Format:

The underlying structure of, and rules for, manipulating computer data.

Basically, computers process Syntax. Give them a set of data points and formal rules(programs) for manipulating that data and they are ready to do their job. Humans are responsible for the Semantics, the meaning, of the data and rules. This difference in responsibilities becomes important in the world of Internet programming. Consider a Web search for "Java." As expected, I get lots of references for the programming language. And, sprinkeled in, some for coffee and for the island in the Pacific I am actually interested in. Trying again, I search for ' "Java" and "Island" ' Among other links, I get

and even

In fact of the first twenty five references, the only three of real interest were the one above and the following

Interestingly, ' "Java" and "Island" and "Pacific" ' lost all three of the above out of the first twenty five, but among many good links also netted me the following

What is the difficulty?

I am searching for "data" and not "content".