8.6.1—
The Special case of Semiotic-Semantic Properties

The computer paradigm shows that a symbol's semiotic-semantic properties can be correlated with the causal role the symbol can play, so long as all semiotic-semantic distinctions between symbols are reflected in syntactic distinctions. What links the semiotic-semantic properties to the marker type, however, are the conventions and intentions of symbol users. So if an adding circuit has the binary pattern 0001 tokened in one register and 0011 in a second and produces a tokening of 0100 in a third as a result, the tokening of the third is accounted for by the functional architecture of the machine and the specific patterns present in the registers, but the overall process is said to be an instance of adding one and three and obtaining a sum of four only because of the interpretive conventions that are being applied.

Now what, in this paradigm, accounts for the "coordination" of syntax with semantics? On the one hand, the functional properties of the system provide necessary conditions for the reflection of semantic distinctions in the syntax. On the other hand, it is the conventions of symbol users that actually establish (a ) the marker types employed, (b ) the syntactic types by virtue of which markers can be counters, and (c ) the semantic interpretation schemes by virtue of which the markers may be said to have semantic properties. The "coordination" of syntax and semantics depends upon the relationship between semantic and syntactic conventions, and so is highly convention-dependent.

I should like to suggest that this convention-dependence is precisely

what gives the "coordination" of syntax with semiotic-semantics in computers one of its more useful features, and that we should not expect syntax—or, more exactly, functional role and syntactic interpretability-in-principle—to be "coordinated" with non-semiotic-semantic properties in the same sort of way. For one thing that interpretive conventions (or intentions) can do is pick out a unique interpretation for each marker that is to serve as a counter. This is significant because (notoriously) any symbol system is subject to more than one consistent interpretation. (Notably, there will always be an interpretation entirely within the domain of number theory.) It is the conventions and intentions of symbol users that account for the fact that a token in a given symbol game means (for example) dog and not the set of prime numbers . And it is these conventions and intentions that determine which semantic properties are coordinated with which syntactic properties.

Now there is really something at once unique and mundane about the coordination between semiotic-semantic and syntactic properties of symbols. If someone asks why a given counter type is associated with (i.e., is interpretable as bearing) a particular interpretation, the answer is not at all mysterious: it is associated with that interpretation because there is a convention to that effect among a particular group of symbol users. And if someone asks why it is not associated with (i.e., is interpretable as bearing) another interpretation, the answer is that there is no convention linking it to that interpretation. It may indeed be surprising that symbol games as large as geometry and significant portions of arithmetic can be formalized, and it may be surprising that formalizable systems can be automated in the form of a digital computer, but the basis of the connection between counter types and semiotic-semantic interpretation is not at all arcane.

What would seem to be unique about this kind of association between semantic values and marker types is that the relationship between semantic value and marker type is determined by stipulation —and it is this that allows for the association of marker types with unique interpretations. Now it might be the case that there are other factors that could determine how syntactic features of mental representations are to be connected to particular (nonsemiotic) semantic properties and not to others. But it is not at all clear that we ought to expect it to be the case. For one might well think that it is only the stipulative character of semiotic conventions and meaning-bestowing acts that can provide the kind of unique correlation of semantic value with counter type that one finds in symbolic representations in a computer. I know of no convincing argu-

ment that would absolutely rule out the possibility that some other factor could provide such a unique correlation, but I must say that it seems a bit mysterious just what other kind of factors could provide a unique association between the syntactic properties of any mental representations there might be and their MR-semantic properties. It must not be a matter of stipulation, because that would lead to the kind of semantic regress discussed in the previous chapter. But without stipulation, it is unclear how one could get uniqueness of interpretation. The prospects of applying the computer paradigm analogously are thus rendered doubtful, though not precluded entirely.