Xref: utzoo comp.ai:5523 talk.philosophy.misc:3429
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!shelby!csli!weyand
From: weyand@csli.Stanford.EDU (Chris Weyand)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Why the Chinese Room doesn't convince
Keywords: symbols
Message-ID: <11713@csli.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 13 Jan 90 20:21:17 GMT
References: <18883@bcsaic.UUCP>
Sender: weyand@csli.Stanford.EDU (Chris Weyand)
Followup-To: comp.ai
Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U.
Lines: 79

ray@bcsaic.UUCP (Ray Allis) writes:

...

>Inside the Chinese Room there is only a "symbol system"; only marked pieces
>of paper are manipulated; there are no meanings present.  There is no way for
>the Chinese Room to "build up a picture" from an incoming "message" or
>"question".  Actually these are "questions" only when they are outside the
>Room, because their meanings exist only in minds.  Inside the Room there is
>no possibility for contradiction and the notion of consistency does not
>apply.  There is no "reality check".  (This is why I don't believe a Chinese
>Room could fool anybody.)  Inside *any* symbol system it is the same; there
>is no meaning present.  "Understanding" in the sense of "apprehending
>meaning" clearly cannot exist inside a symbol system.  

Why do you say this?  How is the human brain any different.  There are
simple processing units, neurons, being manipulated.  What do you mean by
there are no meanings present?  Also I'm confused by what you mean by,
"Inside the room there is no possibility for contradiction ..."

That a symbol system couldn't understand is not so clear to me.  Where is
your support for this claim?  Intuition?  If the mind is not a symbol system
what is it?  
Why couldn't the "Room" (Book + Searle) "build up a picture"?
Clearly there would have to be more going on than simply Searle reading 
from the book and returning answers.  The book would be constanly changing
based on it inputs/perceptions.  I take it for granted that Searle would 
be changing the book.  It couldn't possibly be a static system if we are
to believe that it can understand Chinese.  It seems to me that to respond
to a language such that others believed you understood the language takes
a general intelligence.  You have to have a great deal of information about
the world.

What if we make the book a complete mapping of the brain of an agent that
understands Chinese, i.e. a huge neural net.  And also give Searle the rules
that govern the behavior of each neuron.  Now we let Searle take the input,
present the input to the book (assume rules for manipulating the proper neurons
based on auditory signals), and follow the rules to propagate the effects.  
THis would involve calculating the inputs to the neurons the output firings
and updating weights and such things that we believe occur in the brain.
We'd also have to have some way for Searle to get output from the Book so we
could assume he has the rules for the neurons that stimulate the vocal chords
and some means of simulating their effects.  e.g. a mechanical device that
simulates human vocal apparatus based on lip, tounge movement etc, all of which
is dictated by Searle's "simulation" of the neural network.  

Now it seems to me that we have a symbol system here, the *symbols* are
probably hidden from us though.  The symbols correspond to patterns of 
activation.  At the lowest level (neuron level) there would seem to be 
nothing but deterministic rule-governed behavior.  The twist comes in the
strange loop whereby the lowest level affects higher *symbolic* levels 
and the higher levels in turn affect the behavior of the lower levels.

Does this scenario seem more plausible for attributing understanding to the
room?  

>So the Chinese room argument fails from the very error that it is intended to
>illustrate.  We are handed a bag of symbols which are really not symbolic
>*of* anything, and we are to "understand" that we have an illustration of
>a hypothesis concerning whether certain kinds of systems can "understand",
>and decide whether we agree and why.  As my son says, "Give me a *break*!"

>I think the evidence is *overwhelmingly against* the hypothesis that symbol
>systems are sufficient for the duplication of human intelligent behavior.  I
>am always surprised that there are people still trying to build minds from
>symbol systems! 

Where is your "evidence".  Did I miss something.  You seem to me to be 
assuming that a symbol system  "clearly" cannot understand.  You can't assume
this, you  are trying to show this.

>(4) Isn't it obvious that diagnosis, model-based reasoning, natural language
>understanding et. al. MUST be futile with nothing but tokens; no MEANINGS? 

Of course there is semantics but you haven't shown that syntax cannot give
rise to semantics.  Like Searle you have assumed this as obvious.  


Chris Weyand -=- weyand@csli.Stanford.Edu