Steve Austin Versus the Symbol Grounding Problem

Taylor, J.L. and Burgess, S.A.

Harnad (1994) identifies the symbol grounding problem as central to his distinction between cognition and computation. To Harnad computation is merely the systematically interpretable manipulation of symbols, while cognition requires that these symbols have intrinsic meaning that is acquired through transducers that mediate between a cogitator and the environment. We present a careful analysis of the role of these transducers through the misadventures of Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man. Putting Steve through a series of scenarios allows us to analyze what role transducers play in cognition

Cite as: Taylor, J.L. and Burgess, S.A. (2004). Steve Austin Versus the Symbol Grounding Problem. In Proc. Selected Papers from the Computers and Philosophy Conference (CAP2003), Canberra, Australia. CRPIT, 37. Weckert, J. and Al-Saggaf, Y., Eds. ACS. 21-25.

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