From nobody@cse.Buffalo.EDU Tue Jun 8 14:46 EDT 1999 From: Nobody Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1999 14:46:45 -0400 (EDT) To: techreps@cse.Buffalo.EDU Subject: techrep: POST request Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1578 Comments: Please let me know what my TR number will be ContactPerson: rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu Remote host: adara.cse.buffalo.edu Remote ident: rapaport ### Begin Citation ### Do not delete this line ### %R 99-06 %U /ftp/pub/WWW/faculty/rapaport/Papers/turing.ps %A Rapaport, William J. %T How to Pass a Turing Test: Syntax Suffices for Understanding Natural Language %D June 08, 1999 %I Department of Computer Science and Engineering, SUNY Buffalo %K Turing Test, Chinese Room Argument, syntax, semantics %X A theory of "syntactic semantics" is advocated as a way of understanding how computers can think (and how the Chinese-Room-Argument objection to the Turing Test can be overcome): (1) Semantics, as the study of relations between symbols and meanings, can be turned into syntax---a study of relations among symbols (including meanings)---and hence syntax can suffice for the semantical enterprise. (2) Semantics, as the process of understanding one domain modeled in terms of another, can be viewed recursively: The base case of semantic understanding---understanding a domain in terms of itself---is syntactic understanding. An internal (or "narrow"), first-person point of view makes an external (or "wide"), third-person point of view otiose for purposes of understanding cognition. The paper also sketches the ramifications of this view with respect to methodological solipsism, conceptual-role semantics, holism, misunderstanding, and implementation, and looks at Helen Keller as inhabitant of a Chinese Room.