APPLICATIONS 
DAVID G, HAYS 
HeXagram 
Truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, Z 
offer a few remarks for the use of those who seek a 
point of view from which to see truth in the six papers 
assigned to this session. 
Linguistic computation is the fundamental and primitive 
branch of the art of cumputatlon~ as I have remarked off 
and on. The insight of yon Neumann~ that operations and 
data can be represented in the same storage device, is 
the linguistic insight that anything can have a name in 
any language. (Whether anything can have a definition 
is a different question.) I recall surprising a couple 
of colleagues with this r~ark early in the 1960s, when 
I had to point out the obvious fact that compillng and 
interpreting are linguistic procedures and therefore 
that only in rare instances does a computer spend more 
time on mathematics than on linguistics. By now we all 
take the central position of our subject matter for 
granted. I express this overly familiar truth only for 
the pragmatic reason that some familiar truths are more 
helpful than others in preparing for a given discourse. 
Syntax needs semantic Justification, but semantics has 
the inherent Justification that knowledge is power. The 
semantic Justification of syntax is easy: Who would try 
to represent knowledge without a good gr~--,-r? I have 
not yet found a better illustration than the tlmstable~ 
an example that I have used for some years now. Without 
rules of arrangement and interpretation, the timetable 
collapses into a llst of places, the digits 0,..9, a~d 
a few speclal symbols. Almost all of the information in 
a timetable is conveyed by the syntax, and one suspects 
that the same is true of the languages of brains, minds, 
and computers. 
Syntax needs more than semantic Justification, and pra 8- 
m-tlcs is ready to serve. Without pragmatic Justifica- 
tion, the difference between cognitive and syntactic 
structures is ridiculous. We may find more Justifiers 
later, but the rediscovery of pragmatlce is a boon to 
those who grow tired of hearing language maligned, It 
is easy to make fun of Engllsh , the language of Shakes 
spears, Bertrand Russell, and modern science. But the 
humor sometimes depends on the ignorance of the Joker. 
We find first semantic, then prasmatic, and perhaps 
later other kinds of Justification for the quirkiness of 
English and other languages, and the Jokes loss their 
point. 
Form, not content, admits of calculation. Since Aristo- 
tle proceeded in accordance with this rule, I find it 
surprising that John Locke omitted mention of the simple 
ideas in reflectlon. (One may recall that Locke knew of 
simple ideas in perceptlon~-~ellow, warm# amoot~nd 
considered knowledge to derive from perception and re- 
flection.) Listing the sidle ideas in reflection selml 
in fact to be a task for our century, anticipated in 
part in the L9th century. Predication, Ins~an~isClonp 
membership, component, g, denoCation~ localization, morali- 
zation are some candidates that presently show strength. 
Content, not form, dlsamblguates, A more precise state- 
ment is that specific and not general knowledge fixes 
our interpretations of what we encounter, certainly in 
language and probably also in other channels of peroep- 
tlon. Thus the great body of knowledge of our culture I 
of the individual mind, or of the ~asslve database makes 
lends an appearance of fixedness and stability to the 
world that simpler minds, cultures, and co~uters cannot 
get. The general rules of syntax, semantics, and prag- 
matlcs define the thinkable, allowing ambiguity wheQ 
some specific issue comes up. In a hash house or a con- 
versation, understanding and trust come with complete and 
exact information. 
Conversation is a social activity. The thinking computer 
(Raphael's title) may be an artificial mind, but the con- 
versing computer (William D. Orr's cltle) is an artifi- 
cial person and must accept the obligations of social 
converse. Those obligations are massive: "to do justice 
and love mercy*', "to do unto others as you would have 
them do unto you", to act only as ic would be well for 
all to act, to express fully and concisely what is rele- 
vant, "to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
hut the truth". 
Trust precedes learning. Lest anyone suppose chat I have 
listed the precepts of our greatest masters in a spirit 
of fun, I hasten to add this obvious truth from study of 
our species. Whether the sciences be called social, be- 
havioral, or human, they tell us that one accepts know- 
ledge for one's own store only from sources that can be 
trusted. Nor could wisdom dictate the opposite, since 
internalized knowledge is inaccessible to test and cor- 
rection. 
Is the computer worthy of trust? 
I have asked this question of students, grading the con- 
text from simple arithmetic trust (they trust their poc- 
ket calculators to give accurate sums and products) co 
complex personal trust (they would not accept the compu- 
ter as a friend). We have, I chink, no experience with 
computers that are functionally worthy of crust in any 
but simple matters. We may be learning to make computers 
follow the masters' precepts in conversation. Whether 
their users will ever accept them for what they are worth 
is hard to predict. If computers grow trustworthy and 
are assigned important tasks, then when crisis occurs the 
issue of trust may determine such outcomes as war or 
peace. Thus the issue is not frivolous. 
Trust arises from knowledge of origin as well as from 
knowledge of functional capacity. Genetic and cultural 
history provide enormous confirmation that a neighbor 
can be trusted, beyond even broad experience. We can 
gain only a little knowledge about a friend in the course 
of a friendship, but we can bring to bear all of our own 
inherent mechanisms of trust for those that look and 
smell llke us when crisis occurs. 
The six papers in this session, written by human beings 
and selected by persons of authority~ deserve sufficient 
true~ that the reader may learn from them. The systems 
that they describe may grow into knowledgeable, semanti- 
cally and pragmatically effective, syntactically well- 
formed conversents. Their contributions are to that end, 
and have the advantage that, by seeking to apply know- 
ledge they can detect its limits. 
Science needs application, since contact with reallt 7 
tends to realnd us scientists that there are more things 
out there than are dreamed of in our theories. 
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