Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aiai!jeff
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Hayes vs. Searle
Message-ID: <2756@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 12 Jun 90 16:43:54 GMT
References: <17046@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <36091@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <17102@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 32

In article <17102@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) writes:
>I only said Searle PLAUSIBLY is manipulating rules (in being Searle), 
>because if the Book exists then clearly the structure of discourse can 
>be described via a set of rules (as many and as complicated as you like). 

So far I agree.

>It's not out of the question, that's all, in which case it's not clear to me
>that the dual distinctions of understanding necessarily pertain. 

Ok, so maybe it _isn't_ clear.  I might agree with that too.

>If it were absolutely clear that understanding could NOT be rule-based,
>then the book couldn't exist, in which case the argument is vacuous.
>If understanding CAN be rule-based, then Searles's distinction is empty
>and the systems argument wins. Searle, after all, is just an IO device.

But all Searle assumes is that the _behavior_ is rule-based.  And
then he askes whether there is understanding as well and concludes
that, in the case of the Chinese room, there wouldn't be.  To say
that the right behavior is all that's required for understanding
would be to beg the question.

If understanding could not be rule-based, maybe the question-
answering behavior still could be.  If the behavior couldn't be
rule-based either, then the book couldn't exist Searle's argument
would be unnecessary.

Of course, if understanding can be rule-based, the behavior can be
too.  If all we have is that the behavior can be rule-based, however,
we can still ask whether understanding results (just by following the
rules) or not.