Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!noao!arizona!mike From: mike@arizona.edu (Mike Coffin) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Question on Chinese Room Argument Message-ID: <9359@megaron.arizona.edu> Date: 21 Feb 89 20:24:55 GMT References: Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson Lines: 25 From article , by harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad): > Is anyone reading or understanding these postings? Or thinking about > what this is all about? As I've indicated repeatedly, this is NOT a > definitional issue! All I have to do is POINT to positive and negative > instances! [...] Oh fiddle. Science deals with the observable. That is the whole point of the Turing test --- if a box displays intelligence, then it is intelligent. If it seems to understand, it understands. There is no more point in differentiating between "understands" and "doesn't understand but seems to" than to differentiate between "orbiting because of gravity" and "being pushed by an undetectable angel that follows an inverse square law." If the box+rules seems to understand, then it understands. Pulling it apart and saying "this piece doesn't understand", "neither does this one", ... completely irrelevant. You might as well dissect a brain --- as you pull out each neuron you say "hmmmm... this clearly doesn't understand --- it is much too simple." Why is it so hard for some people to accept the fact that a system can have properties that none of its components have? -- Mike Coffin mike@arizona.edu Univ. of Ariz. Dept. of Comp. Sci. {allegra,cmcl2}!arizona!mike Tucson, AZ 85721 (602)621-2858