reCAPTCHA and Knowledge

One should read Theaetetus a few times, even if Plato was a bit off, lacking any scientific basis. But then again these are techys I will be speaking of and worse they are millennials. But in trying to deal with reCAPTCHA, that device which says it can tell if you are a human, I suspect Plato would not agree.

Let me pose a simple example. The ask to show street signs. Then there is a photo with a street sign on a pole, and a bit overlapping another frame, just a wee bit. Now to me the pole is a part of the street sign. The sign would not function without the pole. But not to reCAPTCHA. So on to another picture asking the same question. How about that structure holding the sign above the highway? Nope, I guess not.

Language and meaning are complex, and despite the best efforts of those isolated mammals inhabiting some complex in California, I would guess, humans, the real kind, can understand the word "sign" in a multifaceted manner.

This is a simple but powerful example of the lack of human understanding, especially of others. Plato in his Socratic tales spent a great deal of time on this issue. Google seems clueless.