Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!labrea!polya!geddis
From: geddis@polya.Stanford.EDU (Donald F. Geddis)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Question on Chinese Room Argument
Keywords: Water, Sensory-Motor I/O
Message-ID: <7219@polya.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 26 Feb 89 05:25:24 GMT
References: <45126@linus.UUCP> <5662@homxc.UUCP> <45199@linus.UUCP>
Reply-To: geddis@polya.Stanford.EDU (Donald F. Geddis)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 24

In article <45199@linus.UUCP> bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry Kort) writes:
>The Chinese Room is like Helen [Keller] before her moment of epiphany.
>There is little point in manipulating symbols mechanistically
>unless one can map the symbols to non-symbolic sensory
>information from the external world.

That might be true if the issue were learning.  In the case of
Searle's Chinese Room argument, however, we are already *assuming*
that the system is capable of communicating like a native speaker.
The system already acts as though it connected the symbols to their
non-symbolic referents.  Note how easy it was to know that Helen
Keller did *not* understand the connection: almost any simple
"conversation" gave it away.

Now it might be true that a computer system could not converse intelligently
without being embodied in the real world.  But the real question Searle
considered was:  How do you determine when a system is intelligent, when it
actually thinks?  The AI answer is "treat it as a black box and observe its
behavior (have conversations, in this case)".  Searle (mistakenly) disputes
this view, and wants us to look inside the system for some "causal powers".

	-- Don-- 
Geddis@Polya.Stanford.Edu
"We don't need no education.  We don't need no thought control." - Pink Floyd