Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Computers Are Syntax All the Way Down: Reply to Bozşahin.William J. Rapaport - 2019 - Minds and Machines 29 (2):227-237.
    A response to a recent critique by Cem Bozşahin of the theory of syntactic semantics as it applies to Helen Keller, and some applications of the theory to the philosophy of computer science.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Contextual Vocabulary Acquisition: from Algorithm to Curriculum.Michael W. Kibby & William J. Rapaport - 2014 - In Michael W. Kibby & William J. Rapaport (eds.), Contextual Vocabulary Acquisition: from Algorithm to Curriculum. pp. 107-150.
    Deliberate contextual vocabulary acquisition (CVA) is a reader’s ability to figure out a (not the) meaning for an unknown word from its “context”, without external sources of help such as dictionaries or people. The appropriate context for such CVA is the “belief-revised integration” of the reader’s prior knowledge with the reader’s “internalization” of the text. We discuss unwarranted assumptions behind some classic objections to CVA, and present and defend a computational theory of CVA that we have adapted to a new (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Semiotic Systems, Computers, and the Mind: How Cognition Could Be Computing.William J. Rapaport - 2012 - International Journal of Signs and Semiotic Systems 2 (1):32-71.
    In this reply to James H. Fetzer’s “Minds and Machines: Limits to Simulations of Thought and Action”, I argue that computationalism should not be the view that (human) cognition is computation, but that it should be the view that cognition (simpliciter) is computable. It follows that computationalism can be true even if (human) cognition is not the result of computations in the brain. I also argue that, if semiotic systems are systems that interpret signs, then both humans and computers are (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • How Helen Keller Used Syntactic Semantics to Escape from a Chinese Room.William J. Rapaport - 2006 - Minds and Machines 16 (4):381-436.
    A computer can come to understand natural language the same way Helen Keller did: by using “syntactic semantics”—a theory of how syntax can suffice for semantics, i.e., how semantics for natural language can be provided by means of computational symbol manipulation. This essay considers real-life approximations of Chinese Rooms, focusing on Helen Keller’s experiences growing up deaf and blind, locked in a sort of Chinese Room yet learning how to communicate with the outside world. Using the SNePS computational knowledge-representation system, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • In Defense of Contextual Vocabulary Acquisition: How to Do Things with Words in Context.William J. Rapaport - 2005 - In Anind Dey, Boicho Kokinov, David Leake & Roy Turner (eds.), Proceedings of the 5th International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Modeling and Using Context. Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 3554. pp. 396--409.
    Contextual vocabulary acquisition (CVA) is the deliberate acquisition of a meaning for a word in a text by reasoning from context, where “context” includes: (1) the reader’s “internalization” of the surrounding text, i.e., the reader’s “mental model” of the word’s “textual context” (hereafter, “co-text” [3]) integrated with (2) the reader’s prior knowledge (PK), but it excludes (3) external sources such as dictionaries or people. CVA is what you do when you come across an unfamiliar word in your reading, realize that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Yes, She Was!: Reply to Ford’s “Helen Keller Was Never in a Chinese Room”.William J. Rapaport - 2011 - Minds and Machines 21 (1):3-17.
    Ford’s Helen Keller Was Never in a Chinese Room claims that my argument in How Helen Keller Used Syntactic Semantics to Escape from a Chinese Room fails because Searle and I use the terms ‘syntax’ and ‘semantics’ differently, hence are at cross purposes. Ford has misunderstood me; this reply clarifies my theory.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations