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Ontological and Conceptual Critique
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Ontological Counterexamples: Inside a computer, reference
takes place all the time. Pointers to memory, variables, URLs - most of the contents of symbols inside machines are in effective reach of the machine itself.
- Numbers and Numeral distinction: length(``HARRY'') returns''5'', because there are five letters.
- Crosses abstraction boundaries: error-correcting circuits, parity memory. The bits count other bits directly!
- The concept of transducers does not solve the problem: How can one thing magically transform from the external to the internal symbol? Can't the boundaries be crossed both ways? Are transducers physical or semantic entities?
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So computers must be involved in their subject matter, actually a be connected to it.
- Conceptual Difficulties: Semantics isn't gone in FSM, it's just put to the side, dealt with as a separate species. If syntax is separate from semantics, does semantics reduce to syntax and then physics, or somehow straight to physics despite its non-physical characteristics?