19.1 The Roots Of Intention


Words can't be the substance of our thoughts. "We must discard the usual view that words denote or represent, or designate; instead, their function is control; each word makes various agents change what various other agents do." We often think in owrds, with no conscious sense of how or why this happens. Our intropsective abilities are too weak to answer questions about language.

(NB: Again, Minsky attacks our intutions gained from introspection. In general, lay psychology can't be right, because we don't have enough access to our cognitive machinery.)


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