Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!decuac!cvl!harwood 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 References: <764@mind.UUCP> <768@mind.UUCP> <770@mind.UUCP> <6174@diamond.BBN.COM> <1337@watcgl.UUCP> <977@mind.UUCP> Reply-To: harwood@cvl.UUCP (David Harwood) Distribution: world Organization: Center for Automation Research, Univ. of Md. Lines: 48 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