Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!cica!iuvax!cogsci!dave
From: dave@cogsci.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Chalmers on Searle
Message-ID: <53635@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 8 Aug 90 00:53:45 GMT
References: <1620@oravax.UUCP> <619@ntpdvp1.UUCP> <53619@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <25761@cs.yale.edu>
Sender: news@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
Reply-To: dave@cogsci.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington
Lines: 74

In article <25761@cs.yale.edu> blenko-tom@cs.yale.edu (Tom Blenko) writes:
>In article <53619@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> dave@cogsci.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:

>|This is still a misstatement of Searle's position.  He is deeply
>|opposed to *any* behavioural criteria for intelligence.
>
>Perhaps your language is just a bit casual here, but I know of no
>reason to doubt that Searle has behavioral criteria for intelligence --
>his claim is that they are not sufficient, not that they aren't
>necessary.

Actually, I don't think that Searle believes behaviour is even a
*necessary* criterion.  I'm pretty sure he's pro the possibility of
brain-in-vat style intelligence.  But you're right, the claim I was making
was that Searle is opposed to behaviour as a sufficient criterion.

>|Actually, Searle's argument is all about introspection.  There might be other
>|arguments about the topic that aren't, but those arguments certainly aren't
>|Searle's.
>
>I don't think Searle would agree with this.  My recollection is that
>his reasoning goes something like this:  we individually have conscious
>(introspective) experience and we have come to ascribe that
>consciousness to other (similar) intelligent entities.  If we were to
>discover that an entity displaying the necessary behavioral
>characteristics nevertheless lacked introspective experience, we would
>not consider it intelligent.

I agree with this statement of Searle's position, but I don't see what you're
arguing with.  The point is that Searle believes "intentionality =>
introspectability".  Therefore "~introspectability => ~intentionality".  And
this is how his arguments go: demonstrate (arguably) that certain entities
don't have introspectability (consciousness), and so (by the implicit premise)
don't have intentionality.  Given that the implicit premise is highly
disputable and not even argued for in the original paper (although he does
produce some arguments in this direction in the BBS paper forthcoming this
year), we may conclude that the arguments, so far as they go, should
really be taken to be about introspectability/consciousness/phenomenology,
not about intentionality.

>Having conscious experiences and establishing the (shared)
>understanding that other intelligent entities have similar experiences
>are two quite different things.  Evidence for the former is immediately
>accessible and relates directly to introspection.  Evidence for the
>latter is a far more complicated issue, and I propose has more to do
>with communication, shared experience, and social conventions than with
>introspection, per se.

I agree, and again don't see a source of disagreement.  The question of
how we might establish that certain creatures have conscious experience is 
independent of the question about what conclusions we might draw, once
we know that they have such experiences.  Direct introspection is the easiest
way to answer the first question, but it's rather limited, so one hopes
it's not the only way.  Analogy is another method that seems to serve us
well in real life.

>| [stuff re the two different chinese room arguments, about consciousness
>|  and introspection]
>
>You've said this in two different messages now, I believe, and I
>suspect many people would be sympathetic with this position. However, I
>don't think you've done much to argue against Searle -- in particular,
>to show which part of Searle's argument you are disagreeing with, and
>precisely why you claim it is incorrect.

Apologies for repetition.  As for not arguing against Searle, that's quite
deliberate.  The present discussion is just clarification of the structure
of Searle's argument.

--
Dave Chalmers     (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.

"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."