Xref: utzoo talk.philosophy.misc:3899 comp.ai:6559 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!umn-d-ub!cs.umn.edu!hougen From: hougen@cs.umn.edu (Dean Hougen) Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc,comp.ai Subject: Re: Why the Chinese Room doesn't convince Summary: I seem to be repeating myself Keywords: understanding, chess, Kasparov Message-ID: <1990Apr11.013420.5611@cs.umn.edu> Date: 11 Apr 90 01:34:20 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 <1990Apr10.1026 Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis - CSCI Dept. Lines: 161 In article <1990Apr10.102610.5376@maths.tcd.ie> ftoomey@maths.tcd.ie (Fergal Toomey) writes: >In article <1990Apr8.191524.6565@cs.umn.edu> hougen@cs.umn.edu >(Dean Hougen) writes: > >>In article <1990Apr6.144947.11473@maths.tcd.ie>, ftoomey@maths.tcd.ie >> (Fergal Toomey)writes: >>>Perhaps I should have chosen a better example. [stuff deleted] >> >>The fact that you present a revision of the analogy (below) indicates to >>me that you do not believe that your novice+Kasparov analogy (above) to >>be adequate to answer this question in the positive. Neither do I. >>[stuff deleted] > >I believe that my original analogy was flawed in that it was too open to >misinterpretation. Paul found an apparent way out my argument by saying >that we must consider the Kasparov + novice system instead of the novice >alone. I don't think Paul "found an apparent way out" of an analogy "too open to misinterpretation." I think he correctly found the flaw in your analogy. The chess playing ability in your example did come from an understanding of chess, Kasparov's! > My second analogy was supposed to demonstate that we can't do this: >we *must* consider the novice alone. If we require that the Kasparov and >the novice must be considered together (and this is clear, I hope, in the >second example) then we are led to the conclusion that understanding is >impossible for a non-human. [stuff deleted] I think you mean that we must consider the novice+list system (not that we must consider the novice alone). I agree that if we drag Kasparov back into consideration then you will have shown that understanding is impossible for brute-force systems (though not for all non-humans). >>>Let me put it like this: suppose the novice >>>has brain damage, so that he is incapable of understanding chess, but >> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>You're cheating. [stuff deleted] > >No. [stuff deleted] You're right, you weren't cheating. I temporarily lost my mind. >Therefore, I can rephrase my argument: >It is possible to construct a thing which follows instructions yet >understands nothing, therefore, >It is possible to construct a thing which plays chess as well as >Gary Kasparov and yet does not understand chess. You are making the same "prefered vantage point" mistake that Searle made in the original Chinese Room argument. You say that because the novice alone doesn't understand chess we know that the novice+list system doesn't understand chess. You can fiat-in the novice's inability to understand chess, but you can't do the same with the novice+list system's ability or lack thereof to understand chess; this latter point is what the discussion is all about. >>>[stuff deleted] You conclude that the novice+list >>>system has a better understanding of the game than the normal player. You >> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>I conclude that the novice+list system has a better *understanding of how to >>play the game*. I don't assume that the novice+list system has a better >>understanding of all aspects of the game such as historical origins, etc. > >Well, I was considering only the strategy aspect. No, you weren't. That's why I brought this point up. I realize that you weren't thinking about historical origins of chess, but you were confusing two seperate aspects. They are: 1. understanding chess strategy aplication (that is, being able to win at chess) and 2. understanding chess strategy *formulation* (this is, being able to, among other things, explain why you won or lost). The first of these is what I think was originally meant by 'understanding chess' in this discussion, the second is what you tested for in order to conclude that, and this *is* a quote, "the novice+list system has *no understanding* [emphasis yours] of the game." >You say that the novice+list >has a better understanding of this aspect than the normal player has. I >think you're confusing knowledge with understanding. Certainly, all the >information you need to play brilliant chess is contained in the list, but >it is stored in a form that is not accessible to the novice's mind in >a form that would allow him to understand it. But again, is the *novice+list system* understanding? We know a priori that the novice is not going to understand chess, but does that mean that any system of which the novice is a part cannot understand chess? Take a Kasparov+robot arm system. The robot arm can execute manuvers on a certain chess set, such that when it gets standard chess notation as input it can reach out and move the correct pieces to the correct places. Now, the arm is too dumb to understand chess. Does the Kasparov+robot arm system understand chess? Yes, despite the fact that the arm alone does not understand chess. In the Kasparov+robot arm system it is quite easy to see where the understanding is taking place: in Kasparov. In the novice+list system the understanding is more distributed, but you can't say it is absent just because it can't *all* reside in the novice. As for confusing knowledge with understanding, I think you are just playing word games. "Ooops, I see a computer doing it, it must only *know* something, not actually understand it." What is the difference between a. knowing how to discuss questions with you and b. understanding question discussion? >Similarly, you could learn >a lot about aerodynamics from studying aeroplanes, but that doesn't mean >that aeroplanes understand aerodynamics, even though they can fly a lot >better than I can. Ever heard of a pilot? If the pilot didn't understand how to fly the plane it would crash. If we replace the pilot with a computer will you say that the computer (assuming it flies the plane without crashing) doesn't understand how to fly the plane? >> [stuff deleted] >My requirement that the novice explain >how he won is, btw, irrelevant to the argument (I've noticed a lot of >people arguing about this point). Having the novice explain how he won was not irrelevant to the argument, it *was* the argument. Need I go back to your previous article and splice in your comments that the novice+list can't explain *therefore* we know that is doesn't understand? >I was simply pointing out that >although the behaviour of the novice gave rise to the belief that he >understood chess, examination of his algorithm reveals that to accord >him an "understanding" of the game would be to stretch the meaning of >the word beyond permissible limits. Now you are saying that, a priori, no brute-force system understands. Sorry, you'll have to give me a reason to buy that, I'm not going to assume it. (If I prove that you are a brute-force system will you concede that you don't understand?) BTW, what are "permissible limits"? Anything that lets your prejudices stand? >If you imagine yourself carrying >out the actions of the novice you instinctively know that you would not >have an understanding of chess, you would simply be following instructions. The question is not whether *I* understand, it is whether the system of me+list understands. Again, this is the mistake Searle makes. >If you want a >computer to understand chess, you must tell it how to understand chess. >Telling it how to play good chess does not garantee an understanding. A >computer programmed to play chess will not understand chess in exactly >the same way as our brains, which are programmed to understand things >like chess, cannot, apparently, understand "understanding" :-) Perhaps the problem is still that you haven't said what you think it means to "understand chess." We are trying to find out what it means to understand, and yet anytime I tell a computer how to do anything chess-related you say, "Yes, but that is not understanding chess." I have no way to defend Kasparov if you say he doesn't understand chess, because you refuse to say what understanding chess means to you. >[stuff deleted] >Fergal Toomey. Dean Hougen