Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!helios!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!mips!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!isi.edu!vaxa.isi.edu!smoliar From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Searle's Chinese Room Message-ID: <15723@venera.isi.edu> Date: 17 Nov 90 19:13:37 GMT References: <16197@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <3952@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <10297@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> <3488@aipna.ed.ac.uk> Sender: news@isi.edu Reply-To: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) Organization: USC-Information Sciences Institute Lines: 35 In article <3488@aipna.ed.ac.uk> cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes: > >If you want to know what Searle thought don't read this newsgroup! Read >Searle! He's not as stupid as most of those who disagree with him :-) This is an important point, but there is also a major CAVEAT. Listening to Searle speak should not be regarded as an adequate substitute for reading his publications. When I heard him at UCLA, he indulged in a nasty habit of playing to his audience, putting far more emphasis on making his phrases dance than on conveying the content of his message. The best way to deal with Searle is on the printed page (and in the sort of relaxed mood which is likely to open the mind). I also feel that it is about time we apply this new rule to Turing as well. I cannot help but wonder how many participants in this debate (mind you, that includes Searle) have actually READ "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," the source of that now notorious test which continues to inspire such controversy. What is particularly important is that, in his first paragraph, Turing recognizes that "think" is probably too highly-charged a word to serve as a basis for discussion. The whole purpose of what is now known as the Turing test was to recognize that "Can machines think?" was too vague a question and to replace it with one which could be "expressed in relatively unambiguous words." If Turing is now looking down on us from Heaven, he is probably aghast at all the ways in which his simple intellectual exercise has been abused. ========================================================================= USPS: Stephen Smoliar 5000 Centinela Avenue #129 Los Angeles, California 90066 Internet: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu "It's only words . . . unless they're true."--David Mamet