Download Semantic Engines

DeGroff 5/14/2017
Classic Paper Study/Discussion Guide
Title: Semantic Engines: An Introduction to Mind Design
Author: John Haugeland
Top Five Items of Interest:
1.
Formalisms: A formal system is like a game in which tokens are manipulated
according to rules, in order to see what configurations can be obtained. Basically,
to define such a game, three things have to be specified: what the tokens are,
what the starting position is, and what moves are allowed in any given position.
2.
Linguistic Formalisms: Sometimes we say that the tokens in a certain formal
system mean something – that is, they are “signs” or “symbols” or “expressions”
which “stand for” or “represent” or say “something”. Such relations connect the
tokens to the outside world (what they are “about”) making it possible to use them
for purposes like record-keeping, communication, calculation, and so on.
3.
Computational/Representation Assumption: The discovery that semantic engines
are possible – that with the right kind of formal system and interpretation, a
machine can handle meanings – is the basic inspiration of cognitive science and
artificial intelligence.
4.
Big Ideas: “Reasoning is but reckoning,” said Hobbes (1651, ch. V), in the
earliest expression of the computational view of thought.
5.
Big Ideas: Descartes, a contemporary of Hobbes, gave the mind/matter problem
its modern form in his doctrine of metaphysical dualism. Mind and body, he said,
are two entirely different kinds of substance.