Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!rutgers!elbereth.rutgers.edu!harnad From: harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Question on Chinese Room Argument Summary: What's Good for the Goose... Message-ID: Date: 4 Mar 89 05:45:53 GMT References: <9546@megaron.arizona.edu> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 24 mike@arizona.edu (Mike Coffin) of U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson writes: " No one said that a bare stored-program computer, without benefit of " algorithms, can understand Chinese. And no one says that the algorithm, " in book form understands Chinese. Does this prove that the combination " of the two can't understand anything? Why?... a computer running an " algorithm can have properties that neither the computer (without " algorithm) nor the algorithm (without computer) have. I completely agree with the last proposition, except that understanding is not one of those properties. Why? Because when Searle stands in for the computer, doing everything it does, executing all of its algorithms, he does not understand. Hence neither can the computer understand, when it does exactly the same thing. Ref: Searle, J. (1980) Minds, Brains and Programs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3: 417-457. -- Stevan Harnad INTERNET: harnad@confidence.princeton.edu harnad@princeton.edu srh@flash.bellcore.com harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu harnad@princeton.uucp BITNET: harnad@pucc.bitnet CSNET: harnad%princeton.edu@relay.cs.net (609)-921-7771