SUO: Comment #9 "Meaning"
Let's address Bill Burket's comments on the essential role of the human mind
in the specification of 'meaning.'
Bill Burkett comments:
As I stated above, I think it is a big mistake to divorce the SUO from
human minds. Do so would be similar to assumed objectivity of physical
sciences (i.e., independence of natural phenomena from observer) that was
discredited by, for example, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (the
observer affects the thing observed). Our goal in the specification of the
meaning of the components of the SUO must include the recognition that a
precise definition that means the same thing to all people at all times is
impossible and seek instead to simply try and maximize it.
Bill prefaced this comment with the following background:
I believe that "meaning" and "knowledge" only exist in the human mind.
Every externalization of this "stuff" is merely a representation that has no
inherent meaning. (A corollary to this is that I believe that that
anthropomorphizing of computer systems is a self-defeating mistake because
by confusing the roles of machine and human it interferes with clear
understanding of what computer systems can and can't do. Terms like
"Inference engines" and "knowledge representation" refer to clever data
processing to my mind (and my apologies to those whom this statement might
offend :-) .)
* I believe that whatever-it-is that happens in a human mind that is
"meaning" is a real-world phenomena that should be part of the world view
that backs the SUO we develop. (Thus, "possible worlds" do exist in the
real world as mental phenomena.) Said another way, I think it is a big
mistake to omit the human mental element from our account of "meaning" in
the SUO because that is the only place in the universe where "meaning"
really means anything. (Because if human minds didn't exist, the question
of whether or not there is any "meaning" out there in the world is
completely moot.)
* Any physical manifestion of meaning - i.e., physical representations
intended to recreate the a selected phenomenon in my mind within the mind of
another person perceiving the representation - is at best an imperfect and
imprecise mechanism.
=========end of comments from Bill Burkett====
Any responses? If accepted, how would this change the Scope and/or Purpose?
Jim Schoening