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From: jwl@garnet.berkeley.edu (James Wilbur Lewis)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Chinese Room Experiment: empirical tests
Message-ID: <1990Nov26.055429.8883@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 26 Nov 90 05:54:29 GMT
References: <7852@uwm.edu>
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In article <7852@uwm.edu> markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
-I offer you a sinple empirical test that will verify or refute the assertion
-Searle makes with this thought experiment.  This is, however, a minor twist
-on the original idea, since it is YOU who will be the learning agent.
-
-The concept is real simple.  Try to learn a new language by imitation.
-
-So here's what you should do: take out about 10 books written in a language you
-don't understand (like 10 books written in Spanish).  The language can be one
-that uses the Latin alphabet, or not.  It doesn't matter.
-
-Rewrite the exact contents of each book.  That means, WRITE the contents, don't
-analyse them.  Don't even think about what it all might mean, just write it.
-And write it all.
-
-This is what will happen.  Within about 60 minutes your brain WILL begin to
-adapt itself to the regularities of the language.  In one day (supposing you
-work about 8 hours that day), you will already have a good feel for the
-syntax of the language.  In about 3 to 5 days, you'll gradually begin to
-recognize stylistic regularities.
-
-And that means you work constantly 8 hours each day, no cheating, no breaks.
-
-After a week you will be able to reproduce very complex novel (and valid)
-written segments in that language, though you may not have a glimmer of what
-it all means.
-
-At this point, you'll find yourself in a very unusual position of being able
-to recognize a new written language, and even being able to write in that
-language, without having the faintest idea of what you're saying.
-
-Now to address Searle's question about whether or not you *understand* the
-language or not (remember, you're working off of 10 separate sources, so
-you are getting a wide perspective on the language that even foreign language
-students don't get), all you need to do is look inward.  Just ask youself:
-what is your subjective impression?

But this has *nothing* to do with Searle's argument, which is based on the
premise that the symbol manipulation algorithms are powerful enough to
enable the man in the room to *answer* questions that are posed in Chinese.

So far, you've only asserted that someone who follows your program will
be able to *recognize* the syntax of the foreign language, and perhaps
*generate* some syntactically valid strings.  But that is an entirely
different set of skills than the ones required to *respond* to input 
with the competence of a native speaker.

-I suspect that even without the aid of resources to tell you what means what,
-you will converge onto a sudden understanding of the language, almost as if
-you were hit by a bolt out of the blue.

I'll buy the idea that you might have a good feel for the syntax of a language
after such an intensive program of imitation, but *understanding*, in the sense
that Searle uses the term?  No way!

-- Jim Lewis