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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Chinese Languages in Rooms
Message-ID: <2286@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Nov-85 00:59:36 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.2286
Posted: Thu Nov 21 00:59:36 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 23-Nov-85 05:28:22 EST
References: <2461@sjuvax.UUCP> <27500160@ISM780B.UUCP>
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Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
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In article <27500160@ISM780B.UUCP> jim@ISM780B.UUCP writes:

>>"Let the individual internalize all of these elements of the system.
>>He memorizes the rules in the ledger and the data banks of Chinese
>>symbols, and he does all the calculations in his head.  The individual
>>then incorporates the entire system.  There isn't anything at all to
>>the system that he does not encompass.  We can even get rid of the
>>room and suppose he works outdoors.  All the same, he understands
>>nothing of the Chinese, and a fortiori neither does the system,
>>because there isn't anything in the system that isn't in him." [Searles]

>This seems to me to be patently false, since this is precisely what one
>does when one learns Chinese.

Oh really?  How do you know?  Having withstood six years of French, I can
attest to the fact that memorizing the Rules Of French doesn't have you
understanding French.


Charley Wingate