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From: blenko-tom@CS.YALE.EDU (Tom Blenko)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Hayes vs. Searle
Message-ID: <25618@cs.yale.edu>
Date: 22 Jul 90 07:03:42 GMT
References: <129.26a5feab@csc.fi> <14385@venera.isi.edu>
Sender: news@cs.yale.edu
Reply-To: blenko-tom@CS.YALE.EDU (Tom Blenko)
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept, New Haven CT  06520-2158
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In article <14385@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes:
|It seems to me that the only reason we are arguing about symbols is because
|they are critical in Searle's argument.  This is because Searle is bound and
|determined that his precious concept of "understanding" should not be related
|to behavior.  By factoring behavior out of the problem, he feels secure in
|being left with a problem of interpreting symbol structures.

Symbols appear in Searle's argument because they provide a reasonable
approach to characterizing the nature of programs.  One can just as
well say that programs "merely" manipulate information rather than
manipulating things in the real world.

If I show someone a sorting algorithm, I don't think we'd have any
trouble agreeing that the algorithm doesn't "know" how to rank Olympic
atheletes or determine, based on grades awarded, the best student in a
class.  Of course, if I build a system in which the algorithm is hooked
up to the right inputs and outputs, the system will correctly rank
Olympic atheletes or determine which student has the highest grades.
And without much trouble I can probably alter the system so that it is
able to determine the worst student in the class.  Or, I can alter the
system so that it runs the same algorithm but doesn't do anything
sensible at all.

Searle is making the same point about intelligence. The algorithm
doesn't suffice.

That's all that the syntax vs. semantics issue consists of.  What is
more difficult is the issue of what it means for a system to "have"
semantics (or equivalent, to "understand").


|...  Church's thesis argues that since it is always the same
|computational behavior, all these different symbolic perspectives are,
|in some sense, equivalent.  It does NOT argue that any computing agent
|must actually possess such symbol structures.  This is a subtle point;
|and it seems to have escaped Searle, thus leading him to say all sorts
|of silly things about symbols which fly in the face of any objective
|observation of either machine or human behavior.

Searle's claim is precisely that this equivalence relation is not fine
enough -- that if two systems are extentionally (behaviorally)
equivalent, it might still be the case that one was "intelligent" and
one was not.

	Tom