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From: harwood@cvl.umd.edu (David Harwood)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: The symbol grounding problem - please start your own newsgroup
Message-ID: <2326@cvl.umd.edu>
Date: Sun, 5-Jul-87 13:31:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: cvl.2326
Posted: Sun Jul  5 13:31:15 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 5-Jul-87 21:23:39 EDT
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Reply-To: harwood@cvl.UUCP (David Harwood)
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Organization: Center for Automation Research, Univ. of Md.
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Xref: mnetor comp.ai:627 comp.cog-eng:191

In article <977@mind.UUCP> harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes:
>
>David Harwood has made two very rude requests that I stop the symbol grounding
>discussion, which I ignored. But perhaps it's time to take a poll. Please send
>me e-mail indicating whether or not you find the discussion useful and worth
>continuing. I promise to post and abide by the results.

	As I have told others, I don't really want you to quit posting
altogether to this or other newsgroups. And I would be glad for you to
form your own group for your "dialogues," such as they are. But I have
to complain about your insufferable postings on two grounds: (i) they
have nearly nothing to do with computer science, nevertheless preoccupy
comp.ai with your various and sundry self-referential, just vaguely
intelligible musings; (ii) your postings, in my opinion, are the heighth, 
width, and breadth of unresponsive, presumptuous, and condescending 
twaddle. Worse than anything which I've read which was contributed as
an original article to BBS, for example. Of course, as my colleagues 
advise, BBS does not publish my research - and is unlikely to in the
near distant future. Such are the wages of public sin.)
	Yes, my two replies to you were sarcastic (more than "very rude," 
I think; I never recieved any serious complaint about either, perhaps
because others knew what I meant, even if they did not quite agree with
me.)
	Let me give you back an illustration of how you talk. You just
a moment ago replied to D.S. who question what psychological evidence you 
have that perceptual categorization is usually "all-or-none." He seemed to
question your expertese as a perceptual psychologist. (I might add that
you have tried to impress us with generally slighting remarks about
psychologists as well as computer scientists, but this may be a "policy
of controversy" (perhaps used to secure competitive funding - who knows;-).
	Anyway, your one line reply did not answer the question, but was
more of a silly riposte, something like, "Check the concrete nouns in
your dictionary." He asks you something, and you ignore this. Or, taking
you seriously, you tell him to go supply his own evidence for your claims.
(I suppose that if he were your research assistant, that you would sagely
explain that a "concrete" noun is one admitting "all-or-none" categorization.)
	I have no prejudice concerning your views - to be sure, I rarely
can make sense of them. But I wish you would simply take your own advise,
"Check the concrete nouns of your dictionary," and use them sometimes to
good effect in your postings. Define your abstractions. Cite evidence for
your speculations. Do not cite your own damn article like a parrot. If you
prefer, post the damn thing, which has got to be more intelligible than
your recent stuff, and we will be done with this particular "symbol grounding
problem."
	Then I will look forward to your new occasional postings, even
in this newsgroup.

David Harwood