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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watdcsu!dmcanzi
From: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle's Pearls
Message-ID: <1779@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 21-Oct-85 18:49:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1779
Posted: Mon Oct 21 18:49:57 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 22-Oct-85 05:25:40 EDT
References: <2412@sjuvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 15
Summary: 

Suppose you had the means to selectively and temporarily disable parts
of a human brain.  You might eventually discover, by experiment, two
portions of my brain with the following property:  when the rest of my
brain is shut off, I can still understand; yet when either of these two
parts is shut off, I become unable to understand.  Neither of these two
portions of my brain understand, yet the system consisting of both of
them working together *can* understand.

I suggest that, even though neither the man in the Chinese room, nor
the manual he reads from can be said to understand Chinese, the system
consisting of both man and manual understands Chinese.
-- 
David Canzi

There are too many thick books about thin subjects.