Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!yale!engelson From: engelson@cs.yale.edu (Sean Engelson) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Question on Chinese Room Argument Message-ID: <51332@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> Date: 21 Feb 89 17:04:39 GMT References: <4298@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <51157@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> Sender: root@yale.UUCP Reply-To: engelson@cs.yale.edu (Sean Engelson) Organization: Computer Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-2158 Lines: 177 In-reply-to: harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) In article , harnad@elbereth (Stevan Harnad) writes: > >The careful reader will find an uncanny resemblance between the logic >underlying the following exchange and Lewis Carrol on Achilles and >the Tortoise (in which Carroll showed that you can lead someone to logical >water, but there's no way to make him drink it). But, I suspect, that Harnad has the roles reversed. In any case, >Read on: >" What is your criterion for determining which is which [understanding >" or not understanding Chinese]? > >As I said before, you need no definitions, no criteria. You only need >to be able to tell the difference -- in your own, subjective, >first-person case -- between when you understand a language (e.g. >English) and when you do not (e.g., Chinese). Can you do that? Now >please assume that Searle can do the same, and that he says he does NOT >understand Chinese. However, the _system_ of (Searle + rules) says that it does understand Chinese. Is there some hidden reason (dare I say "criterion"?) to say that Searle knows what he's talking about, while (Searle + rules) does not? >There is no reason whatever (apart from the >preconceptions that Searle's Argument was formulated to invalidate) (a) >not to believe him or (b) to believe that there is "someone/something" >else in the Chinese Room that IS understanding Chinese in the same >sense that you or I or Searle understand English. To pick (b) merely on >the basis of the preconceptions that are the very ones under criticism >here is simply CIRCULAR. -- Now none of this is new; one would have >thought that it would be clearly understood (sic) from my prior >posting. In other words, you are a priori invalidating the systems approach. By this I mean the application of such terms as "understanding" et al. to the _entire_ entity under discussion, not merely the obvious, physical one. You seem to be denying the existence of (Searle + rules). Why? I don't see that the `paradox' inevitably leads one to deny this system existence; in fact it seems that your arguments take its NON-existence for granted. >Read on. > >" And I can equally well POINT to Searle running his rules for Chinese, >" and say to (him + rules) in Chinese, "Look, you understand Chinese, >" don't you?" and I'd expect to get back the answer (in Chinese) "Yes". > >In saying you could point to it, I was clearly speaking about the >subjective phenomenon (i.e., whether YOU YOURSELF understand English or >Chinese), which is primary and not open to doubt, rather than to its >external manifestations (i.e., whether SOMEONE ELSE does): The evidential >status of those external manifestations is precisely what's on trial >here; one can't win this case by simply declaring them "judge and jury" >instead! That's not a logical supporting argument; that's just >circularity. By this argument Searle _himself_ does not understand English, since all I have is his word, and since I cannot declare anyone but myself "judge and jury", I _must_ disbelieve him. Can you say "implicit solution to the Other Minds Problem"? I knew you could! >For all external purposes, we have a (hypothetical, perhaps even >impossible) situation in which a guy (imagine it's you) is running >around manipulating symbols and saying he can't speak Chinese and has >no idea what the symbols mean; meanwhile, ex hypothesi, if a Chinese >person reads the symbols, they say "I understand Chinese... etc." Even >if we accept the unlikely hypothesis that this is possible (and could >go on for a lifetime, with the symbols as consistently lifelike and >convincing as a real-life Chinese pen-pal), there's still no one around >about whom we could say, "Ya, well if he says he understands, I'm ready >to believe he understands, just I am about anyone else who says he >understands." The only one around is you, and you say (don't you?) that >you don't understand. Perhaps we should ask the hypothetical Chinese >alter ego to say where he is, and where he stands on the matter... Why do you assume that an intelligence must be 'person-like', in having a simple body which contains its underlying hardware and software. You seem to be making the hidden assumption that any system which is not `embodied', cannot understand. How do you justify this? >Part of the problem is of course with the premise itself (i.e., >supposing that we could do all this with just symbols), which may be >about as realistic as supposing that we could trisect an angle with >just compass and straight-edge. All that the premise seems to do is to >spuriously mobilize our instincts to defend the personhood of our >unseen pen-pals. But recalling that there's no way we can be sure about >our pen-pals under such conditions either, and that the SOLE case of >understanding we can be sure about is still our very own (i.e., the >"other minds problem"), ought to be a good antidote for mistaking >external signs for the real thing even under such counterfactual >conditions. Well, then, how does non-symbolism solve the other minds problem? How do I know that someone else understands through non-symbolic means, when symbolic do not suffice? If you argued that the other minds problem was insoluble, that would be fine, but you seem to be making the rather strong claim that it is solvable, given the proper non-smbolic representation. I see no substantiation of this claim, is there any? >Have we made any progress here? I think not. I keep saying I'm not >defining but pointing to a subjective experience that all people have How, please tell me, HOW can you point to a _subjective_ experience that someone other than yourself is experiencing? >and Engelson keeps talking about fanciful things that "people plus >rules" have. Now he says that all this logical, methodological and >empirical discussion, which was originally intended to assess the >evidential status of the (teletype version) of the Turing test is now >answerable to that test A PRIORI! Rather, I am arguing, that failing an answer to the other minds problem, this gedankenexperiment tells us nothing. A priori, there is no reason to distinguish between the evidence given us by Searle or by (Searle + rules), and this introduction of this nebulous subjective concept of understanding doesn't help much. >That's like saying: "Well if God >didn't create the earth, then tell me how he created Darwinian >Evolution?" Preconceptions manage to survive without ever becoming >negotiable! Rather more like saying, "How does Darwinian evolution _necessarily_ provide evidence against the existence of god?" >The only other possibility Engelson seems ready to imagine is a complete >alternative causal/functional explanation of understanding that distinguishes >Searle from a mere symbol-manipulator; but I've already said that we're >far from such an account, nor do we need one for present purposes. I would be satisfied for a descriptive account. How can I tell if someone or something understands Chinese or not? I'd like to know on what phenomenological basis you say that Searle understands while (Searle + rules) does not. I don't want a theory, just a criterion for reproducibility, so that I too may see the distinction. >Logically speaking, you just have to show that a theory is internally >inconsistent or inconsistent with the data in order to show it's wrong >(although Kuhn will of course remind you that that's not enough to make >people give it up). You don't have to come up with the right theory. But you do need some clear method of evaluating your data! From what I can tell, the data is identical in both cases, the difference being in the implementation. All I want is an evaluation criterion. (Is this getting repetitive? See the note at the top.) >seems like a big enough inconsistency to do in the purely symbolic >theory. Suppose that with the proper adjustment of an EEG machine, I was able to get Morse code (or some other linguistic phenomenon) out of my brain that said, in effect, "I do not understand English". Would you then say that _I_ do not understand English, ignoring my vehement replies to the contrary, and my demonstrated competence with the language? Well, Searle's denial of understanding is the same as my brain waves. Irrelevant. >My "concept of understanding" is no different from what yours was >before you bought into a fantasy that "a person plus rules" could >understand even if the person couldn't. I.e. you assume a priori the result that a person + rules cannot understand. The hidden assumption is revealed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sean Philip Engelson, Gradual Student Who is he that desires life, Yale Department of Computer Science Wishing many happy days? Box 2158 Yale Station Curb your tongue from evil, New Haven, CT 06520 And your lips from speaking (203) 432-1239 falsehood. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. -- Albert Einstein