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From: rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Why the Chinese Room doesn't convince
Keywords: symbols
Message-ID: <18893@bcsaic.UUCP>
Date: 13 Jan 90 00:12:30 GMT
References: <18883@bcsaic.UUCP>
Reply-To: rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP (Rick Wojcik)
Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle
Lines: 26

In article <18883@bcsaic.UUCP> ray@bcsaic.UUCP (Ray Allis) writes:

>Well, at bottom, my problem is that I cannot be certain that I *understand*
>precisely what John *means* by the symbol "understand".  We cannot *know*
>that we concur on the MEANING (semantics) of "understand".  Or it may be
>that, as in my case, we hold more than one definition, and neither of us can
>be certain which definition is intended in any given situation.  

Ray's posting was excellent, but I would add a few more comments to this
point, which seemed to be his central point.  First of all, we do not know
what it is about human "wetware" that gives rise to subjective experiences
(e.g. Ray's mental pictures).  So it is difficult to claim that computing
machines can't somehow be made to have subjective experiences.  (I don't claim
that they can.  I claim that we don't know how to prove that they can't.)
Secondly, 'understanding' is not a binary predicate.  There is no true
threshold where one can say a human has 'understood' an expression or not
'understood' it.  There are many degrees and levels of understanding.  You can
even 'understand' foreign expressions if you infer their meanings correctly
from other cues (e.g. body language), not using linguistic cues at all.  For
example, if you don't know that Japanese "Hai" means agreement, but you see a
nod of the head, you might infer what it means.  Is this 'understanding' in
Searle's sense or not?  There is no way to tell, since the term is inherently
vague.
-- 
Rick Wojcik   csnet:  rwojcik@atc.boeing.com	   
              uucp:   uw-beaver!bcsaic!rwojcik