Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!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: Tell me a story, tell me a story... Keywords: Understanding, Comprehension, Learning Message-ID: <45524@linus.UUCP> Date: 1 Mar 89 01:32:03 GMT References: <4298@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <7220@polya.Stanford.EDU> Sender: news@linus.UUCP Reply-To: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry Kort) Organization: Zenophobics, Lesser Lights, PA Lines: 21 In article harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) laments about the difficulty of explaining his ideas about the Total Turing Test: > I've always thought this reasoning was quite easy to understand, but from > the fact that very few people have given me any objective evidence that > they've understood it, I've concluded that it must be difficult to > understand. Maybe by trying to put it slightly differently each time, > tailoring it to the latest misunderstanding, I'll succeed in making it > understood eventually... Stevan, would it help if I confessed that I was most captivated by the sample dialogues found in Turing's paper, and later exemplified in Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize winning book? I know that a lot of technical specialists look down upon such frivolous and fanciful dialogues, but if the goal is to successfully communicate an idea, it helps to dramatize the material. For some reason, people love a good story with some emotional give and take. --Barry Kort