Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!nosc!crash!ncr-sd!se-sd!jim
From: jim@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Jim Ruehlin, Cognitologist domesticus)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: No more Chinese rooms, please?
Message-ID: <3431@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
Date: 29 Jun 90 00:10:53 GMT
References: <25445@cs.yale.edu> <1990Jun26.140923.22895@cs.umn.edu> <25457@cs.yale.edu>
Organization: NCR Corporation, Systems Engineering - San Diego
Lines: 32

In article <25457@cs.yale.edu> blenko-tom@CS.YALE.EDU (Tom Blenko) writes:
 
>Well, this is exactly one of the things Searle is disputing. Consider
>again the artificial city, and suppose that someone does succeed in
>constructing such a thing.  So the artificial city replicates
>externally, as closely as anyone can tell, just the behaviors that a
>real city would.
 
>If we go to a real city, we can pretty well arrive at an opinion about
>how much "civic pride" it has. It is reflected in various tangible
>elements of the city (parks, libraries, services) and less tangibly in
>the attitudes and dispositions of its human inhabitants.
 
>Now, the question is, does the artificial city have "civic pride"?  But
>the architects of the artificial city are only concerned with inputs
>and outputs, and when they deliver the desired transfer function, they
>suppose, using your view, that they are finished.  So there's no reason
>for anyone to suppose that it's meaningful to talk about the civic
>pride of an artificial city.

You may be carrying the metaphor of the city a little too far.  What's 
the corelation between "civic pride" and something that happens in
neurons (it's something intangible, I assume, but what?).  And simply
because cities have "civic pride" is no reason to assume that neurons
have a coresponding phenomenon.

In any case, we can linguistically define "civic pride".  It has certain
effects and, presumably, causes.  It manafests itself in a certain way.
As long as we can define a property like this, we can simulate it or
duplicate it.

- Jim Ruehlin