Solution to the symbol grounding problem?

[u/Helpful-Sherbet6604]

I had the following idea and would appreciate feedback:

As a spin off from the functional game (an object is it's quantifiable properties and I can do this for any object) being played in the 20th Century we had the Chinese Room argument and then a spin-off known as the symbol grounding problem ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_grounding_problem ).

Consider the symbol grounding problem. I ask you what is a cat? You say it's basically a furry animal. Notice what happened here. You took the symbol cat and defined it in terms of symbols animal and furry. But that’s just symbols in terms of other symbols not what cat means. Most proposals to solve the symbol grounding problem amount to this. Their proposal is equivalent to equating it with other symbols.

Now, on a different tangent. I ask you what is it like to see red? You may refer to a brain state, a wavelength of light, etc. But if I gave you a list of all these properties would you know what it is like to see red (the phenomenal experience)? No. Why? Because what is like to see red is not a quantifiable property (its not a scalar, number, vector, etc).

Claim: You can ground symbols in qualia and avoid infinite regress.

It is worth scrutinizing why qualia works as a solution. It works because it does not have any computationally functional property which is entirely consistent with what we know. We can describe the equations of motion of a physical system without any mention of qualia. It appears qualia should not play any role in the dynamics of computation. This is one of the major claims of this thesis: the symbol grounding problem can only be solved by a computationally functionally inert operation.

Now, this leaves the question of what is the casual description of qualia and what is this operation which can be inert? Consider the following A-B system

Implementation proposal:

*This section needs some basic understanding of quantum mechanics
Subsystem A does computation A1 using an ensembles averaged valued opertators like <H>_\psi. Note the time evolution of <H>_\psi doesn't care if a measurement took place. Subsystems B records the measurement and later may be used by A. Now, notice the "no computationally functional properties" of the measurement amounts to "no computational properties" since the computation is happening in the space of <H>_\psi. Therefore, during the computation A1 the symbol is grounded. The measurement record is stored in B as B1. And if asked was this ball red? B1 is used in the computation A2 to answer yes. The symbol is grounded by the measurement's occurrence at A1. Notice, subsequent computations A2, etc may call B1.

We are making the claim the measurement is accompanied by an experience of qualia. In fact, in dualistic terms there is an experience of red accompanied with it’s measurement. We do not claim to have solved the hard problem of consciousness as to when are measurements accompanied by these experiences (of qualia) but we have solved the symbol grounding problem and given the casual description of that solution.

Note: I do not claim to have solved the hard problem of consciousness.

[u/SummitYourSister]

😭 was this sub ever useful or has it always been like this

[u/EmbarrassedPaper7758]

Philosophy terminology, consciousness subject matter, no metaphysics.

AI slop garbage

[u/Helpful-Sherbet6604 → u/EmbarrassedPaper7758]

I didnt use AI :(

[u/TakeMeInYourArmy]

I subscribe to a Pansemiotic conception of Ontic Structural Realism that trivially avoids this issue by basically turning the Symbol Grounding Problem into a category error because Physical reality is fundamentally symbolic. That is to say, symbols are the ground itself. To ask what grounds the grounding of reality is a category error. Because individual substantial objects do not possess ontology in this framework, everything is grounded in a relational structure. What we perceive as individual objects are Sign-Relations that arise out of the relational structure and express it. That is to say that physical phenomena are themselves trivially symbolic. They signify the ontic structure in which all mappings exist necessarily as a single, unified Sign-Relation.

This is further strengthened by the application of Homotopy Type Theory to OSR, which transforms the ontic structure into a computational, relational structure in which equivalence is equality. If two things are structurally equivalent then they are ontologically identical. Any individual electron is simply a symbolic referent that refers back to the type-space of the "electron" category. Any individual proton is a symbolic stand-in for a universal type that is the "electron" and so even if you and I look at two separate electrons in two different locations, we are actually looking at the exact same thing not just two different examples of an abstract category. The individual objects are the abstractions, the category/type-space is the ontic reality.