Semantic Web Company

An interview with Herbert Hrachovec, conducted by SWC’s own Marion Fugléwicz-Bren, drew my attention to an article by Hrachovec in which he explored what he calls the “irreconcilable similarities” between man and semantic machines:

Treating certain systems (computers, brains) as mechanisms working towards potentially meaningful results by purely formal procedures has proved to be a fruitful research program. Think of a jigsaw puzzle. The shape of its pieces contains no information about the content of the representation that has to be retrieved. Finding out how the pieces fit together is a syntactic activity that can be performed according to formal principles. All those pieces just fit together in the end; but, remarkably enough, a picture of something has been assembled by this process. Evidently it is possible, by appropriate construction, to integrate formal procedures and the more complex relationships between signs and their interpretation. A puzzle illustrates semantic machines insofar as it leads to representation of reality in the absence of any prior semantic information.

When do you think this article whas published? (more…)