Xref: utzoo talk.philosophy.misc:3886 comp.ai:6538 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!amdahl!kp From: kp@uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc,comp.ai Subject: Re: Why the Chinese Room doesn't convince Summary: Operational criteria vs. non-functional definition Keywords: functional definitions, understanding, explanation Message-ID: <08eB02Qb9b.D01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> Date: 9 Apr 90 18:25:56 GMT References: <23100@mimsy.umd.edu> <1990Mar19.153959.6113@sjuphil.uucp> <0541@sheol.UUCP> <1990Mar26.155415.21756@sjuphil.uucp> <0556@sheol.UUCP> <1990Apr3.162019.27598@maths.tcd.ie> <1990Apr5.202224.27534@caen.en <1990Apr6.14494 Reply-To: kp@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA Lines: 49 In article <1990Apr8.194925.17551@cs.umn.edu> hougen@cs.umn.edu (Dean Hougen) writes: >In article <7cn102fg9ahA01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>, kp@uts.amdahl.com > (Ken Presting) writes: >>The everyday test for understanding of a subject is to ask for an >>explanation. This is a practical, functional, empirical procedure. > ^^^^^^^^^^ >So you are arguing directly against Fergal's point which was that >understanding should *not* be defined by functional behavior? Not exactly. I think that whenever an objective, fuctional ("operational" is perhaps a better word) procedure can be given for applying some description to a phenomenon, so much the better. The question of whether such a procedure constitutes a *definition* of a term, or whether every term must have such a procedure associated with it, is a much bigger issue. I think we can draw many interesting conclusions from the CR without going into that mess, so I will just note the existence of the mess, and drop the issue! > >>The criterion for "being able to play chess" is winning games, or at least >>playing without breaking the rules too often. The criterion for >>understanding chess is explaining games, or at least not being >>dumbfounded before them. > >The criterion for understanding how to apply chess strategy is winning >games, or ... The criterion for understanding how to formulate chess >strategy is explaining games, or ... > >Again, you are arguing against Fregal's point (as was he, btw) but saying >you are trying to back him up. Functional behavior looks like the way >to go on this understanding thing, no? I think we should avoid arguing about understanding as much as we can. I certainly don't want to claim that understanding is undefinable, or that it is irrelevant to AI. I would not expect much success from any attempt to define "understanding" in functional or operational terms. The everyday operational criteria for deciding whether someone understands are not completely satisfactory, even for everyday purposes. I have posted a discussion of the information content of a cross- compiler, which I think provides a practical and (potentially) formal framework for stating a conclusion which is directly analogous to the CR. That is the way to go, I think. Nobody could leran the semantics of a programming language from studying the machine code of a cross- compiler. This is what the CR boils down to. Not much, but not nothing! Ken Presting