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FWIW, linguists "admit" that the notion of word is one of the most controversial in linguistics. see also semiotics.

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What Tromboniator said.

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Originally Posted By: tsuwm
FWIW, linguists "admit" that the notion of word is one of the most controversial in linguistics. see also semiotics.

Yes sir, Buddy.
Slowly, carefully, I tried to slip in some precursor concepts that could assuage the entrenched dogmas of word people. Which is to say: If you don't know the semantic nature of words, we can't discuss anything, we can only ramble.

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formerly known as etaoin...
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Originally Posted By: Buffalo Shrdlu


Thanks, Buffalo, I think.

The article says almost exactly what I think about memory storage in the brain, but that which I think is fuzzy so I squinted my eyes the second time I read it and now it makes perfect sense.

So Thank You, Shrdlu, but now begin I wonder:

When a robot realizes that he is a robot is he still human?

I think yes.

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If a tree falls in the forest and no one posts the video on Facebook did it really happen?

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Originally Posted By: Faldage
If a tree falls in the forest and no one posts the video on Facebook did it really happen?


Yes
Ten thousand beetle eggs hatched into grubs and begin reducing the tree to sawdust that attracted secondary predator beetles who ate the succulent grubs but couldn't eat the hard acorns which sprouted cautiously but profusely in the new earth-enriched sawdust --and then -- a new baby tree entered a Brave New World.

Don't believe me? Gimmie the tree's coordinates and I'll show you on GoogleEarth if they haven't already UPSed the film to Homeland Security to classify. frown

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Two books dealing at least in part with the subjects broached on this thread:

Non-fiction; meant to be taken seriously: The Mind's I, by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett, and

Science fiction, sort-of; meant to be entertaining/speculative: Anathem, by Neal Stephenson

And each intriguing in its own right, I might add.

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Thanks, Wolf, I'll try to get "Mind's I" on my reader.

I started reading "Anathen" but after a few pages I found it juvenile and thought it not worth finishing. I think I burned it at the Great Book Burning Party I held last year. Maybe I can find a copy at the Library and... naw, I'm betting I won't.
I am an invariant snob about what I choose to read.

> TWELVE (12) is the number of I's I used in this post<


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Some time ago I read "The meaning of meaning" by C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards (1923) - a classic in the field.

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