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From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Sc--nce Attack (self-awareness)
Message-ID: <594@spar.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Oct-85 13:55:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.594
Posted: Mon Oct 14 13:55:35 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 15-Oct-85 08:10:46 EDT
References: <45200016@hpfcms.UUCP> <1605@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: ellis@max.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 92
Summary: 

In article <1749@watdcsu.UUCP> dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi) writes:
>In article <2298@sjuvax.UUCP> tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (T. Moody) writes:
>>>>     John Searle, who argues that human cognition (in particular
>>>>     intentionality and meaning) is caused by the powerful biochemical
>>>>     machinery of our brains, is the author of wonderfully cynical plain
>>>>     language attacks against the assertions by big name AI folks that
>>>>     human cognitive states are digitally simulatable. [Ellis]
>>>> 
>>>> 	As long as it only simulates the
>>>> 	formal structure of the sequence of neural firings at synapses, it
>>>> 	won't have simulated what matters about the brain, namely its causal
>>>> 	properties, its ability to produce intentional states. [Searle, quoted
>>        by Ellis]
>
>"formal structure... causal properties... intentional states..."
>Plain language?

    Remember, that was only a short extract. His  "Minds, Brains, Programs"
    does explain these concepts quite clearly. I have been working on
    a followup article to reply to several questions that have appeared in
    this newsgroup about Searle's ideas, but I have been delayed somewhat
    since my copy of this book is on loan.

    In the meantime, I refer you to Todd Moody's excellent articles on
    the same subject.
    
    One misconception several have had is that Searle has attempted to
    PROVE the inability of a Turing Machine to cause cognitive states.
    What he has attempted to do, rather, is to argue that this is 
    quite unlikely, IF we assume that:
    
        Mental states are REAL PHYSICAL phenomena that are caused by the brain
        (much as say, surface tension in fluids is caused by molecular,
	atomic and quantum interactions).
       
    BTW, the behaviorist dogma denying reality to mental states is a
    result of western dualism. 
    
    Platonism and Christian scholasticism rejected all knowledge not
    derivable from logic and noumenal experience, and was thus unable to
    create scientific theories.

    Science has rejected all knowledge not derivable from logic and
    phenomenal experience, and has thus been unable to create any sensible
    theories of mind. Note that eliminative behaviorism asserts that mind
    is not even a physical thing!

    Searle's idea of the mind as a network of intentional contents
    interrelated in a holistic manner and placed squarely in the physical
    world would seem to represent an entirely reasonable solution to the
    ancient mind/body problem characteristic of the western world's
    schizophrenia.
    
    "Intentional states" are Searle's answer to Wittgenstein's famous
    question "If I raise my arm, what is left over if I subtract the
    fact that my arm goes up?". More on this later..

>It doesn't follow from this that the brain can't be simulated.  Storing
>just a representation of the brain on a Turing machine tape is clearly
>misguided.  But the above argument doesn't rule out the possibility of
>storing representations of the brain, and the relevant parts of the body
>and the environment on a Turing machine tape, and simulating all three
>together.  Ie. maybe a Turing machine can simulate the brain, but only
>by simulating the things that the brain interacts with as well.

    Indeed, if dualism is true, maybe a Turing machine can create
    cognitive states.

>The idea that the brain can be simulated does not imply that the brain
>instantiates a Turing machine.  If Searle's argument depends on this
>implication being true, then it is flawed.
>-- 
>David Canzi
>
>There are too many thick books about thin subjects.

     No doubt. Read some BF Skinner someday. How successful has behaviorism
     been? And why have so many new scientific methodologies simply
     ignored behaviorist dogma?

     I admit that I have not done justice to Searle's theories; furthermore
     there are many in AI and Psychology who believe his work to be
     heretical, especially those who see cognition, semantics, etc in formal
     machine terms. Recall too, that the view of living things as pulleys,
     levers, and joints -- modern information processing concepts simply did
     not exist back then. 
     
        "What IS a representation of the brain?"
        "What IS a simulation of the brain?"
        "What DOES interreact inside the brain?"

-michael