Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ucsd!helios.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!crash!ncr-sd!se-sd!jim
From: jim@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Jim Ruehlin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Hayes vs. Searle
Message-ID: <3204@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
Date: 8 Jun 90 16:32:14 GMT
References: <16875@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <2629@skye.ed.ac.uk> <13772@venera.isi.edu> <2703@skye.ed.ac.uk> <4550@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Reply-To: jim@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Jim Ruehlin)
Organization: NCR Corporation, Systems Engineering - San Diego
Lines: 23
X-Local-Date: 8 Jun 90 09:32:14 PDT

In article <4550@castle.ed.ac.uk> aipdc@castle.ed.ac.uk (Paul D. Crowley) writes:
>Chinese Room is not "understanding" but "causative power".  Just what is
>the magical difference between neurons and logic gates allowing one but
>not the other to participate in "Searle-type-understanding"?

According to Searly in the Chinese Room paper, the difference is that
human brain tissue has some "magical" (my word) quality that provides for
intelligence/understanding/causitive powers, while mere silicon doesn't.
He states that just what this quality is and how it works is a matter for
empirical study.  Neat way to sidestep the issue, no?

It seems to me that this is the real point of his paper - brain mass is
different from silicon mass in some fundamental way.  There's some
molecular/atomic/?? quality or structure that makes brain mass causitive 
and silicon not.  He may not have intended this, but thats what it comes
down to, and it seems patently silly.  There was no evidence for this when
he wrote his paper, and there still isn't.

-Jim Ruehlin
>
>-- 
>\/ o\ Paul Crowley aipdc@uk.ac.ed.castle
>/\__/ "Trust me, I know what I'm doing" - Sledge Hammer