Symbol Grounding Problem
In cognitive science and semantics, the symbol grounding problem concerns how it is that words (symbols in general) get their meanings, and hence is closely related to the problem of what meaning itself really is. The problem of meaning is in turn related to the problem of how it is that mental states are meaningful, hence to the problem of consciousness: what is the connection between certain physical systems and the contents of subjective experiences. Background Referents Gottlob Frege distinguished a referent (the thing that a word refers to) and the word's meaning. This is most clearly illustrated using the proper names of concrete individuals, but it is also true of names of kinds of things and of abstract properties: (1) "Tony Blair", (2) "the prime minister of the UK during the year 2004", and (3) "Cherie Blair's husband" all have the same referent, but not the same meaning. Some have suggested that the meaning of a (referring) word is the rule or features that one mus ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]