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From: eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Hayes vs. Searle
Message-ID: <17103@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 9 Jun 90 22:48:03 GMT
References: <16960@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <2687@skye.ed.ac.uk> <17046@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <36091@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <17102@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Reply-To: eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman)
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 17

In article <17102@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (I) wrotes:
;Yes, but it's an assumption whose implications aren't necessarily
;restricted to the book itself -- I'm trying to show that one of these
;implications affects Searle.


Here's a related argument. Searle wants to know if he can predict the
future. Commonsensically we say of course, he can't. Then Searle
gets hold of a book, written in chinese, that is a detailed oracle of
the next million years. Searle doesn't understand the book, so he still
can't predict the future. But the point is now that a book exists which
does predict the future, contrary to our commonsensical view! The entire
problem has changed from 1. whether Searle can predict the future to 2.
the demonstration that Searle COULD predict the future if he understood
the book. Similarly, the commonsensical view of underrstanding says that
whatever it is, it's not pushing around symbols; but Searle is making
an assumption that says it could be exactly just that.