Skywriting week 1
What struck me most about the Turing reading was the unimportance of the machine's physical construction. And what I found most interesting about the second reading was what it might imply for language learning as computational. Most of my thoughts were centered around the last reading. This paper begins by defining “physical symbol systems” (pss) as having necessary and sufficient means for intelligent action. The word symbol is defined, so is the symbol system and finally what a physical symbol system is, however, this keyword “intelligent” is not defined aside from as something which can describe the action of a PSS. The word action isn’t defined either, I’ll let that slide, but not without commenting on the claim that symbols must affect action. Is it not enough for a symbol such as a thermometer reading to be simply enjoyed and understood? Or are we considering the action potential which underline understanding as “actions” in themselves. Along that line of thought: I do not u...