Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!markh
From: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: On the Chinese room experiment
Keywords: Intention
Message-ID: <1216@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
Date: 22 Feb 89 23:28:21 GMT
References: <7471@venera.isi.edu> <Feb.9.21.07.59.1989.2316@elbereth.rutgers.edu> <7507@venera.isi.edu> <Feb.15.00.46.48.1989.18756@elbereth.rutgers.edu> <4297@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <2447@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Sender: news@csd4.milw.wisc.edu
Reply-To: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins)
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Lines: 9


     I have to disagree with the very premise from which this thought 
experiment is raised, based on my own experience with manipulating unknown
languages.  If you are told the rules to manipulate Chinese symbols with such
an accuracy as to fool everyone into thinking that you are competent in the
language, then you WILL be -- solely in virtue of the rules and their
extraordinary complexity.

     There is already a name for this process: First Language Accquisition.