In the early days of natural language understanding (in the GOFAI era), there was a principle of “minimum surprise”. An ambiguity would be resolved by choosing the least surprising of multiple possible interpretations, which one could also describe as the least interesting, or the most boring, or least informative. Which are different ways of saying the most likely.
“Water” has a range of senses, but for any particular use of the word, some particular referent will be intended. The most likely is, by definition, the one to guess.
David Chapman is wringing a whole book out of this, with no end in sight, although I see nothing in the eponymous dialogue that is in any way a problem for ordinary rationality.
In the early days of natural language understanding (in the GOFAI era), there was a principle of “minimum surprise”. An ambiguity would be resolved by choosing the least surprising of multiple possible interpretations, which one could also describe as the least interesting, or the most boring, or least informative. Which are different ways of saying the most likely.
“Water” has a range of senses, but for any particular use of the word, some particular referent will be intended. The most likely is, by definition, the one to guess.
David Chapman is wringing a whole book out of this, with no end in sight, although I see nothing in the eponymous dialogue that is in any way a problem for ordinary rationality.