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From: arm@ihlpb.ATT.COM (Macalalad)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Searle's response to the systems reply
Message-ID: <9713@ihlpb.ATT.COM>
Date: 23 Feb 89 17:28:49 GMT
Reply-To: arm@ihlpb.UUCP (Macalalad,A.R.)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 91

Being naturally curious why some people, notably Stevan Harnad,
see only one system in the Chinese room, where as others, notably
me, see two distinct systems, I decided to dig up Searle's response
to the systems theory:

"My response to the systems theory is quite simple: 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 could understand because the system is just a
part of him.

"Actually I feel somewhat embarrassed to give even this answer to the
systems theory because the theory seems to me so implausible to start
with.  The idea is that while a person doesn't understand Chinese,
somehow the conjunction of that person and bits of paper might
understand Chinese.  It is not easy for me to imagine how someone
who was not in the grip of an ideology would find the idea at all
plausible."

Being one of those "in the grip of an ideology," I find it remarkably
easy to recognize two systems, and Searle's reply of "internalizing"
the second system only clouds the issue.  His process of internalization
does not get rid of the second system; it merely transfers the medium
from pieces of paper to someone's brain.  (Didn't someone say that
memorization was the lowest form of learning?)  What I would argue
is that for true internalization to take place, the rules must be
converted from one system to the other.  In other words, the person
has to just sit down and learn Chinese.

Perhaps this example will help.  Let's take a variation of the
Chinese room where the purpose of the room is to interpret BASIC
instead of to understand Chinese.  To make it interesting, and to
prevent the person inside from taking any shortcuts, let's make
the BASIC Chinese, with the person inside knowing no Chinese or BASIC
whatsoever.  As the thought experiment progresses, authors of Chinese
BASIC programs get the expected interpretation of their programs
(although they may remark at how slow the implementation is).

Can the person interpret Chinese BASIC?  Obviously not.  She's only
performing calculations and moving bits of paper around.  Can the
person interpret Chinese BASIC even if she memorizes all of the
bits of paper?  In a sense, yes, in the same sense that the person
in the Chinese room who has memorized his bits of paper can
understand Chinese.  Both would appear to the objective observer
to interpret Chinese BASIC or understand Chinese, depending on
which set of papers were memorized.  But introspectively, the
person in the Chinese BASIC room is not doing any interpretation of
Chinese BASIC, and I'm sure that she would be the first to admit it.
No, she's still only performing calculations and remembering bits of
information.

Is it fair to conclude, then, that the system of the person in the
Chinese BASIC room and her bits of paper is not really interpreting
BASIC?  Those Chinese BASIC programmers would surely be astonished
at the deception, were this the case.  In fact, the processor of
your computer probably does not directly interpret BASIC, so doesn't
it surprise you to learn that your computer was fooling you
every time it ran one of your BASIC programs?

Now who's in the grip of whose ideology?

Hopefully, we all see now that there indeed are two different systems
of understanding in the Chinese room.  One has bits of information
being moved around and changed on bits of paper by human hands.
The other has bits of information being moved around and changed
by neurons and synaptic firings.  Searle questions how understanding
can arise out of the first system.  I question how understanding can
arise out of the second.  What I'm waiting for is an explanation of
how understanding can arise out of the second but not the first.
Searle's Chinese room thought experiment tends to cloud this issue
rather than shed any light.

Searle's thought experiment is certainly thought provoking, but it
certainly isn't compelling.  I see no serious threat to strong AI
here.  What I do see is how ridiculous it is to argue that one
system can understand and another system cannot without having
a firm grasp on what understanding is all about.  Despite Stevan's
strident pointing and categorizing those systems which do understand
(and woe to he who MIScategorizes), I still think that such pointing
is a bit premature.  Alchemy is a dead science, but it took advances
in science, not clever philosophizing, to kill it.  (Of course,
further advances in science showed that the transmutation of
elements was indeed possible, but the resulting study in nuclear
physics bear little, if any, resemblance to alchemy.)  Until similar
levels of understanding on understanding are reached, I reserve
judgment and stick to wondering.