Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucsd!orion.cf.uci.edu!uci-ics!venera.isi.edu!smoliar From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: letter to THE NEW YORK REVIEW concerning AI Keywords: Searle, Chinese room, Minsky Message-ID: <7507@venera.isi.edu> Date: 13 Feb 89 15:50:25 GMT References: <7471@venera.isi.edu> Sender: news@venera.isi.edu Reply-To: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar) Organization: USC-Information Sciences Institute Lines: 40 Stevan Harnad apparently wishes to take issue with my having observed that Searle is playing "fast and loose with words like 'understanding.'" Unfortunately, I can only come away with the impression that Stevan, himself, is not doing any better at it! In a review I have recently completed and submitted of THE SOCIETY OF MIND, I being with the observation that a key theme of this book "is that the study of mind is misguided by confused assumptions about what is simple and what is complicated." One may, perhaps, best appreciate this theme by examining the Glossary of the book. If we look up "intelligence," we find: "A term frequently used to express the myth that some single entity or element is responsible for the quality of a person's ability to reason." Under "consciousness" Minsky writes, "the word is used mainly for the myth that human minds are 'self-aware' in the sense of perceiving what happens inside themselves." Sensitive souls may be upset that Minsky should be so bold as to use a word like "myth;" but as in the story of the mule and the two-by-four, when we get too entrenched in our beliefs, it often takes strong words like "myth" to revive our ability to question those beliefs. With regard to the current argument, I do not think it is an accident that there is no entry for "understanding" in Minsky's glossary. Searle may think there are plain facts about understanding. Harnard apparently would rather find HIS plain facts in the area of MISunderstanding. However, Minsky seems to feel that the word has to be treated with even more delicacy than terms such as "intelligence," "consciousness," and "memory." This is not to say that he has ignored the issue of understanding. I believe I made this quite clear in my original article, and it should be apparent to anyone who has spent any serious time with THE SOCIETY OF MIND. The important point is that Minsky has shown more respect to the concept than the combined forces of Searle and Harnad have yet managed to muster with their philosophical word games! I also fear that in his zeal to argue about "understanding," Harnard seems to have missed the "bottom line" of my argument. I would now be willing to generalize my conclusion to include Harnard as well: much of their arguments rest of claims that they wish to pass off as obvious. Apparently, what is obvious to both Searle and Harnad is still questionable to some of us who spend more time in the trenches of our code than in the speculation of others' achievements. Arguments are resolved not by claims of the obvious but by recognition of when more intense scrutiny is in order.