Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!apple!agate!eos!ames!fxgrp!raphael From: raphael@fx.com (Glen Raphael) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Searle's Chinese Room Message-ID: <1990Nov13.015936.13230@fxgrp.fx.com> Date: 13 Nov 90 01:59:36 GMT References: <7014@castle.ed.ac.uk> <16197@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <3952@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> Sender: news@fxgrp.fx.com (News) Organization: FXD/Telerate, Mountain View, CA Lines: 50 cw2k+@andrew.cmu.edu (Christopher L. Welles) writes: >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?? I agree with you that the Chinese room is a lot of hooey; wrote a 20-page pager on it myself once... >The responses to his paper do bring >up some things worth considering, but this occurs only because Searle's >statements were misinterpreted. Not at all; there just happen to be a LOT of ways in which to attack the Chinese Room concept, most of which are valid... >His whole paper represents a lack of understanding of how >formal systems work, what "intentionality" is, and the difference between >hardware and software. I don't think you should accuse Searle of misunderstanding intentionality unless you are willing to attack *his* concept of intentionality at length; he wrote a book called "Intentionality" which is a standard text in Speech Theory. >), 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) Again, for a full formal attack from this angle you'll have to look at how Searle defines "intentional content". I found it fairly easy to attack the Chinese room by reductio ad absurdum based on a few thought experiments. For furthur ideas in this vein you might read the answer to Searle in "The Mind's I" by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett. The Chinese Room is basically an "argument from intuition" rather than a proof, and most of us on the net probably have a contrary intuition. Searle gets a lot of mileage out of a conviction that basically boils down to "If computers could think, then systems made out of rocks and toilet paper, or even *beer cans* could think, and that's PREPOSTEROUS!" The rest is handwaving. (I'll have to take another look at my paper one of these days...) Incidentally, Searle is a *fantastic* lecturer; he's just out of his depth when it comes to AI. > <<<<< Chris >>>>> Glen Raphael raphael@fx.com