Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!emory!mephisto!mcnc!rti!ntpdvp1!kenp
From: kenp@ntpdvp1.UUCP (Ken Presting)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: No more Chinese rooms, please
Summary: Hilary Putnam makes it harder to define "system" than "understanding"
Message-ID: <598@ntpdvp1.UUCP>
Date: 10 Jul 90 19:07:01 GMT
Organization: SNA Solutions Inc., Contract Programming Group
Lines: 67

> In article <593@ntpdvp1.UUCP> kenp@ntpdvp1.UUCP (Ken Presting) writes:
> >       Searle is trying to prove the following:
> >
> >       For any program P whatsoever, and for any machine M whatsoever,
> >       the following inference is always invalid:
> >
> >       Machine M runs Program P, therefore Machine M understands.
>
> (Daryl McCullough) writes: 
> . . .  
> . . .  the validity of the above inference is not claimed by Strong
> AI (or if it is, then they are just speaking loosely). The more
> precise claim would be that, for the right program P, one can infer
> 
> 	     Machine M runs Program P, therefore the system (Machine M running
>	     Program P) understands.
> 

Daryl, I take it that your only objection to my reading of Searle is 
that "System" should replace "Machine" after the "therefore".

> . . .                        For the Chinese room to count as an
> argument against this claim, it would be necessary to establish that
> the system (man + rules + room) does not understand Chinese. And
> Searle cannot establish this without offering *some* definition of
> what it means for a system to understand. (Comment: Searle's variant
> of having the man memorize the rules does not change anything; there
> would still be two systems: the man "acting himself" and the man
> following the rules. Establishing that one system does not understand
> does not automatically establish that the other doesn't.)
> 
> Daryl McCullough
> 

As I see it, the Systems Reply suffers from a far worse problem of 
vagueness than does Searle's original argument.  What is a "System"?
All of us programmers have a very robust notion of how a computer
runs a program.  We are not confused by such complications as virtual
memory, multitasking, distributed processing, and asynchronous execution.
(Well, we do get confused sometimes, but whoever it is that wrote the
operating system must have figured it out at least once).  

There is a big difference between using the concept of "System" in the
engineering context which originated it, as opposed to using the same
concept in an unrelated philosophical context.  

Here is a simple way to see the problem.  You said that when Searle 
memorizes the rules, there are two systems, one of them being Searle 
acting as himself.  You have also said that a "System" is a machine 
plus a program.  But the question being debated is whether intelligence
is constituted by programs.  

Your version of the systems reply does not *directly* beg the question,
but you are making a very big assumption, just by describing Searle-as-
himself and Searle-following-rules in the same terms.  If you could 
justify the application of the term "System" to human beings, you would
be well on your way to refuting Searle. 

The problem is identifying just what "program" a natural object like a 
human brain is "running".  You can't take a core dump and disassemble the
object code.  In _Representation and Reality_, Hilary Putnam presents
a "theorem" in which he argues that every physical object instantiates
every finite automaton.  If he is right, then the Systems Reply has some 
big troubles.


Ken Presting  ("Speaking in fork()'ed tongues")