harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) (09/07/88)
Posted for Pinker & Prince by S. Harnad: __________________________________________________________________ From: Alan Prince <prince@cogito.mit.edu> Cc: steve@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Here is a final remark from us. I've posted it to connectionists and will leave it to your good offices to handle the rest of the branching factor. Thanks, Alan Prince. ``The Eye's Plain Version is a Thing Apart'' Whatever the intricacies of the other substantive issues that Harnad deals with in such detail, for him the central question must always be: "whether Pinker & Prince's article was to be taken as a critique of the connectionist approach in principle, or just of the Rumelhart & McClelland 1986 model in particular" (Harnad 1988c, cf. 1988a,b). At this we are mildly abashed: we don't understand the continuing insistence on exclusive "or". It is no mystery that our paper is a detailed analysis of one empirical model of a corner (of a corner) of linguistic capacity; nor is it obscure that from time to time, when warranted, we draw broader conclusions (as in section 8). Aside from the 'ambiguities' arising from Harnad's humpty-dumpty-ish appropriation of words like 'learning', we find that the two modes of reasoning coexist in comfort and symbiosis. Harnad apparently wants us to pledge allegiance to one side (or the other) of a phony disjunction. May we politely refuse? S. Pinker A. Prince ______________________________________________________________ Posted for Pinker & Prince by: -- Stevan Harnad ARPA/INTERNET: harnad@mind.princeton.edu harnad@princeton.edu harnad@confidence.princeton.edu srh@flash.bellcore.com harnad@mind.uucp CSNET: harnad%mind.princeton.edu@relay.cs.net UUCP: princeton!mind!harnad BITNET: harnad@pucc.bitnet harnad@pucc.princeton.edu (609)-921-7771