文档介绍：The symbol grounding problem in philosophy, engineering, puter science
Russ Abbott
California State University, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA 90032 USA
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Keywords
Computer science, philosophy, reduction, emergence, supervenience, conceptual grounding, thought externalization.
I’m puter scientist. Last year at the Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering I discussed (Abbott 2009) what I see as the similarities and differences between how engineers and think and puter scientists think. We both build things. Engineers build things using physical materials; computer scientists build things using symbolic materials. The fundamental ponent puter science is the bit, a symbol. My paper’s title, “Bits don’t have error bars,” was intended to capture that distinction.
Because puter scientists build things from bits, we are free to develop elaborate symbolic constructions—never having to worry about whether the foundation, virtual as it is, was secure. Consequently we have focused on constructivist abstractions. Our only constraint was that whatever we built had to run on puter. I called that abstracting upwards.
Engineers are not so lucky. Because they build things from physical materials, they must be concerned about the reliability of the foundations upon which they build. How do engineers ensure that their foundations are reliable? They depend on mathematical models