Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!nih-csl!lhc!ncifcrf!haven!udel!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!o.gp.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!cw2k+ From: cw2k+@andrew.cmu.edu (Christopher L. Welles) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Searle's Chinese Room Message-ID: Date: 8 Nov 90 02:32:50 GMT References: <7014@castle.ed.ac.uk> <16197@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <3952@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 146 In-Reply-To: <3952@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> I've just finished a paper on Searle's "Minds, Brains, and Programs." Just thought I'd post it to see what other people thought. Anyone agree with me?? Brains, the Magic Vessel of Intentionality In his "Minds, Brains, and Programs", John Searle's whole conclusion is based on a bad assumption. The responses to his paper do bring up some things worth considering, but this occurs only because Searle's statements were misinterpreted. His ideas, themselves, represent something that is obviously, and completely wrong, not worthy of consideration. His whole paper represents a lack of understanding of how formal systems work, what "intentionality" is, and the difference between hardware and software. Beginning with his first example, Searle makes a tragicly false assumption. Searle claims that since the English speaking man, who performs all the formal operations, does not understand Chinese, there is no understanding involved. The obvious problem with this, is the Systems Reply: The system as a whole understands. The man is only a part of the system, therefore he does not understand. This was understandably misinterpreted by Searle. As he understood it, it implied that simply internalizing the system( i.e. memorizing the rules, script, etc. ) would mean that the English speaking man must therefore understand Chinese. Something that would obviously not be true. The point of the Systems Reply, however, has nothing to do with the physical representation of the system. For all it cares, the components of the system could be spread all over the world. It depends Foley upon the logical structure, and how they interact. The system. Stated more clearly, the English speaking man was only performing the part of a machine, executing a program. It is the result which understands, and not the machine itself. In order for the English speaking man to perceive understanding in the system, he would have to see it from the system's viewpoint. Not just performing the actions that bring the system about. An analogy to this would be a neuron in the brain. It merely reacts according to specified rules, a program. Even if it were capable, it would have no understanding of what it's actions represented to the whole system, i.e. the mind. Pulses are just received and sent according to a set of rules. You can apply this to the whole brain for that matter. The brain itself does not understand, only the result of it's execution, the mind. To say otherwise, you would have to say that somehow, if the brain stopped executing it's instructions, there would still be understanding. After all, if the understanding were inherent in there simply being a brain, why bother acting according to fixed rules. Do you decide to keep following those fixed rules so you will continue thinking??? The idea that following formal principles will cause you to understand is absurd. Do you feel that you keep following a set of rules so that you keep understanding? You are, however, a result of formal rules being followed. Your brain, acts according to physical principles, a set of rules. This distinction between mind, is exactly one of the things Searle argues against: "The distinction between the program and its realization in hardware seems to be parallel to the distinction between the level of mental operations and the level of brain operations. . . . But the equation "mind is to brain as program is to hardware" breaks down. . . . the distinction between program and realization has the consequence that the same program could have all sorts of crazy realizations. . . . Weizenbaum, for example, shows in detail how to construct a computer using a role of toilet paper and a pile of small stones. Similarly, the Chinese. . . program can be programmed into a sequence of water pipes, a set of wind machines, or a monoligual English speaker, none of which thereby acquires understanding of Chinese."(Perry, p. 400-1) All this means, the only thing he demonstrates throughout his whole paper, is that performing a series of rules can not result in one understanding. However, it does not mean that no understanding will result, just that the one executing the program won't be the one doing it. There is nothing against this idea anywhere in AI. No one expects the circuits to begin understanding just because it's following a certain program. A program, in the state of being executed, might be said to be understanding however. It seems Searle never got this distinction strait however: "One of the claims made by the supporters of strong AI is that when I understand a story in English, what I am doing is exactly the same--or perhaps more of the same--as what I was doing in manipulating the Chinese symbols."(Perry, p. 393) Searle obviously didn't understand what was meant here. In the case of him performing symbol manipulation, yes that is done. But it is not something he, his understanding conscious self, does. The same term is being used here to actually refer to two different things. Both his mind, and his body; the brain being considered part of the body. There is generally no need to distinguish between them because, at least at our current technology level, the mind and the body happen to stay together. Searle's argument against the Chinese box is simply that there can be no understanding with just formal symbols. The symbols must have some intrinsic meaning assigned to them. He terms this "intentionality." By his own definition, intentionality is "that feature of certain mental states by which they are directed at or about objects and states of affairs in the world." While this, at least seems to hold with the generally accepted idea of what intentionality, Searle's interpretation of it distinguishes it. When Searle says something has intentionality, he means that it has an intrinsic meaning of some sort. Some have tried to take this to mean that the symbol and what it's referring to are causally connected in some way, but Searle's reply clearly rules that out: "no matter what outside causal impacts there are on the formal tokens, these are not by themselves sufficient to give the tokens any intentional content. No matter what caused the tokens, the agent still doesn't understand Chinese"(The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, p. 454) By this, and other comments, intentionality seems to be some method of letting the brain know, without referring to other symbols, what the symbols coming in mean. Sort of like a dictionary entry for each symbol coming in, but instead of defining it in words( themselves symbols ), it simply carries the meaning: "for intentionality there must be intentional content in addition to the formal symbols."(The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, p. 454) Of course, how do you communicate meaning without referring to symbols? This is the very thing that Searle supposes biological material is capable of, and that's why we can't make a program that involves, in and of itself, understanding. It depends upon the material to contain the meaning. Lets look at a description of how we see things according to Searle: "From where I am seated, I can see a tree. Light reflected from the tree in the form of photons strikes my optical apparatus. This sets up a series of sequences of neural firings. Some of these neurons in the visual cortex are in fact remarkably specialized to respond to certain sorts of visual stimuli. When the whole set of sequences occurs, it causes a visual experience, and the visual experience has intentionality. It is a conscious mental event with an intentional content."(The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, p. 452) It follows an expected sequence at first, but then, after the neuron firings, is suddenly translated into something with intentionality. Notice that, it is no longer represented by symbols(i.e. the firing of the neurons) but is instead, by the great power of organic material, now carried around the brain as an image. His whole ridiculous idea of intentionality, and the idea that somehow the meaning must be passed on to that agent carrying out the program hinges on the idea that the understanding is done by the agent. What Searle is trying to do, is set up a Chinese box wherein, the meaning of the Chinese symbols, are translated into English and the Person inside the box does the understanding. That, however, only leads to breaking it down further and further. Is there sum sub-atomic particle that does the understanding for us. --------------------------------------------------------------- Hope you liked it, or maybe hated it. Let's hear some opinions! <<<<< Chris >>>>>