Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!iuvax!mailrus!uwm.edu!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!markh
From: markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark William Hopkins)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Is the Chinese Room Experiment Consistent?
Message-ID: <1889@uwm.edu>
Date: 14 Jan 90 02:48:13 GMT
References: <1798@uwm.edu> <1529@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Sender: news@uwm.edu
Reply-To: markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark William Hopkins)
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
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In article <1529@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>In article <1798@uwm.edu> markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>>     So the question is, why do we even accept the premise of the Chinese Room
>>Experiment when it is, in my mind, obviously contradictory? (that a language
>>can be "described" independent of the way it is "understood" and "used".)
>
>I suspect Searle did it that way because he was arguing against a
>position that made such assumptions.  Maybe we can start talking about
>Dreyfus (?sp) again.  He at least used to argue that understanding
>can't be captured by rules.

I never implied in my question that understanding could not be captured
by rules.  I just implied that the rules would involve considerations of
the signal processing capabilities between the mind and the body and the
environment, and the manipulatory capabilities of the body in its
environment in a crucial way.

The rules can still be formal rules involving "meaningless" symbols.

In light of this clarification, I ask the question again.  Searle posed
a straw man argument, and I question the premise.