Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!oliveb!apple!voder!pyramid!prls!philabs!linus!mbunix!bwk From: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Question on Chinese Room Argument Summary: Does anybody really know what's going on? Keywords: Understanding, Comprehension, Learning Message-ID: <45213@linus.UUCP> Date: 24 Feb 89 02:00:45 GMT References: <4298@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <45126@linus.UUCP> <125@arcturus.edsdrd.eds.com> Sender: news@linus.UUCP Reply-To: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry Kort) Organization: Cerebral Tours, Pt. Lobos, CA Lines: 18 In article <125@arcturus.edsdrd.eds.com> gss@edsdrd.eds.com (Gary Schiltz) recounts his personal experience in "doing calculus" at age 17 without really understanding what it was all about. Gary concludes: > This really makes me wonder whether it can be determined whether any > system understands, simply from external behavior. I'm not trying to > reach any conclusions about understanding, as I've not studied nor > thought about it much. But, I thought it might be more food for thought. In Feynman's anecdote about the Brazilian physics students, he easily uncovered their lack of understanding when he asked them questions about the real-world phenomena which the physics lessons covered. Their blank stares revealed that they had made no connections between everyday experiences and the subject at hand. F = ma had nothing to do with getting up to speed on a bicycle. Ft = mv had nothing to do with a hitting a baseball. --Barry Kort