Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!cogsci!dave
From: dave@cogsci.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Question on Chinese Room Argument
Message-ID: <18133@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 2 Mar 89 04:08:57 GMT
Sender: root@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
Reply-To: dave@cogsci.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Organization: Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University
Lines: 54

jgn@nvuxr.UUCP (22115-Joe Niederberger) writes:
>dave@duckie.cogsci.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>>[...] Just remember, semantics CAN arise from syntax, as long as the 
>>syntactical system is complex enough, and involves manipulating 
>>micro-structural objects which interact in rich and subtle ways.  
>
>Now, I am not religiously convinced either of the truth or falsity of 
>the above statement, but I can't help noticing the fervor implied by the
>capitalized "CAN." [...] I may still be unmoved (and logically uncompelled)
>to agree with his claim that semantics CAN arise from syntax. If the
>reference to the human brain is the evidence he offers, I ask: why
>must I view the brain as a syntactical system ?

Apologies for religious fervour.  The capitalization was in response to
Searle's repeated claim that "syntax cannot arise from semantics."  Searle
uses this premise repeatedly to support his argument.

When Searle talks of "syntax", he is not referring to the usual linguistic
usage of the term.  He applies it to mean "any system of meaningless
objects whose behaviour is determined by formal rules" (or something like
that), because this is the meaning he needs to support his argument.  But
once we see that this is the meaning he is using, we can simply point to
the human brain:
    Meaningless objects (neurons etc) are obeying formal rules (the laws of 
    physics), and yet semantics is indisputably arising.
Counterexample - so game, set and match to the good guys.

>Yes, it may be an interesting hypothesis that the brain's essential
>function is to serve as a syntactical system, (and this may deserve
>further investigation,) but lack of a disproof doesn't serve as a
>proof for me.

I think you probably mean "syntactical" in the linguistic sense here,
which is a sense which neither Searle nor I intended.  But your
interpretation is a very natural one, and I believe that this is
again indicative of the misleading way with which Searle plays with our
intuitions.  When he says "syntax", our immediate image is of linguistic
objects (those high-level sense-(1) symbols, remember?), and of course
in this case syntax is not sufficient for semantics: using sense (1)
symbols syntactically leaves out the most important part, their meaning.
But these intuitions do not apply to the low-level syntax of sense (2)
symbols (which, of course, never had any meaning to begin with - their
meaning lies in the systems they form).

Incidentally, the hypothesis that the function of the brain is to serve
as a syntactical system (in the high-level linguistic sense) is a 
central tenet of many in the "Symbolic" school of AI. (In particular
it is quite explicitly the backbone of Fodor's thinking - see his
"The Language of Thought", if the title doesn't say it all.)  Needless
to say, this is a hypothesis with which I strongly disagree.

  Dave Chalmers    (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)
  Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition
  Indiana University