engelson-sean@CS.YALE.EDU (Sean Philip Engelson) (11/18/88)
I think that one important distinction that should have been, but was not, made is that the size of infinity has nothing to do with the size of the _concept_ `infinity'. We could, of course, debate what exactly `concept' or `meaning' means, but begging that question, we can easily represent the concept `skyscraper' in less space than a skyscraper actually takes up, viz. in our heads. And if you want to maintain that concepts are non-physical (and thus are not `in our heads' at all), then you must also say that their `sizes' (whatever that may mean) have no commensurability with the sizes of physical objects. Thus the fact that a physical infinity is `really, really big' has no bearing on the possibility of finite representation of the concept of infinity. -Sean- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sean Philip Engelson, Gradual Student Yale Department of Computer Science 51 Prospect St. New Haven, CT 06520 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The frame problem and the problem of formalizing our intuiutions about inductive relevance are, in every important respect, the same thing. It is just as well, perhaps, that people working on the frame problem in AI are unaware that this is so. One imagines the expression of horror that flickers across their CRT-illuminated faces as the awful facts sink in. What could they do but "down-tool" and become philosophers? One feels for them. Just think of the cut in pay! -- Jerry Fodor (Modules, Frames, Fridgeons, Sleeping Dogs, and the Music of the Spheres)