Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!jb3o+ From: jb3o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jon Allen Boone) Newsgroups: comp.theory Subject: Re: more Chinese Room Message-ID: Date: 17 Jan 90 11:31:58 GMT References: <2602@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu> <1527@skye.ed.ac.uk> <4921.25ad37f7@mva.cs.liv.ac.uk> <1585@uniol.UUCP> , <4090@helios.TAMU.EDU> Organization: Class of '92, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 42 In-Reply-To: <4090@helios.TAMU.EDU> gordon@photon.tamu.edu (Dan Gordon) writes: > In article jb3o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jon Allen Boone) writes: > ]schwuchow@uniol.UUCP (Michael Schwuchow) writes: > ]> ian@mva.cs.liv.ac.uk writes: > ]> > ]> >Rather than an argument, I will proffer an example of such a phenomenon. > ]> >From time to time, during human history, writings from long-extinct > ]> >civilisations have been found (for example Mayan codices, Runes or Egyptian > ]> >hieroglyphics). All the information that the translators had to work with > --------------------------------------------------------- > ]> >were the rules they could deduce from the information. With just this > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > ]> >syntactic knowledge, they deduced the semantic content. Isn't this exactly > ------------------------------------------------------ > ]> >what Searle says cannot be done? Code-breakers (for example Turing :-) must > ]> >have to do a similar task. > > Not true. The breakthrough in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics came with > the discovery of the famous Rosetta (sp?) stone, which had text in 3 different > languages, two of them being Egyptian and ancient Greek. easy on the attribution lines....i didn't get quoted once! The Rosetta Stone was quite a find - assuming that it was correct. The problem that arises from using Keys like the Rosetta stone is that it might have been a flawed attempt to uncode Egytpian heiroghlyphics. Of course, we all accept that it is correct (enough) to establish a basis from which we can do some real decoding. However, we are all still viewing this from the assumption that the Egyptians thought similarly to us and our ancestors. Thus we judge the results of our translations according to our own standards and claim that we understand ancient Egypt and it's languages. The rise in different religions the world over can (according to some) be attributed to the fact that people assumed that others thought (or should think) similarly to them. Some contend that all religious systems are the same - merely expressing the same ideas in differing ways. Aleister Crowley wrote a book called 777 which demonstrates the conversions that are necessary to translate from one mystical system (such as Egypts) to another (such as the Greeks). - iain