Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!labrea!polya!geddis From: geddis@polya.Stanford.EDU (Donald F. Geddis) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Question on Chinese Room Argument Message-ID: <7408@polya.Stanford.EDU> Date: 4 Mar 89 08:47:25 GMT References: <4298@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <9763@ihlpb.ATT.COM> Reply-To: geddis@polya.Stanford.EDU (Donald F. Geddis) Organization: Stanford University Lines: 54 In article harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) writes: >If Searle (or you, or me) does exactly what the computer does >but does not understand, then the computer does not understand. True enough, but then you are defining the "computer" to be the dumb processor that interprets the rules. No one claimed that the processor (by itself) *did* understand. I still haven't heard a satisfactory rebuttal to the "Systems Reply", namely that (Searle + Rules) understands, whereas just (Searle) doesn't. [To use your analogy: (Computer Processor + Symbolic Rules) understands, but just (Computer Processor) doesn't.] >Just know when you yourself don't understand >(in doing exactly what the symbol cruncher does) and infer that >nothing/no-one else doing exactly the same thing can be understanding >either. But we *can't* imagine what it would be like to process the Chinese Room rules, because any set of rules that passed the Turing Test would be far to large and complex by orders upon orders of magnitudes for a person to actually (as opposed to simply in the thought experiment) process them. And so this is a case where our intuitions fail us miserably. >The logic of the TTT is this: I have no other basis but the TTT for >my confidence that other PEOPLE have minds, therefore it would be arbitrary >of me to ask MORE of robots. This is only a practical, not a principled >solution to the other-minds problem, however. Hence the same uncertainty >remains, in both cases (human and robot). Not quite true. I can use a biological argument with humans as well, and say "they evolved (via evolution) the same way I did, and we belong to the same species, and (as beings) we were conceived and developed the same way, so if I can think, then they probably can too." Robots don't get quite that close and argument in their favor. But in any case, I don't think that those who argue for the Turing Test (your LTT) would disagree that your TTT works as well, since it encompases the original test. It is harder to pass. I'm not convinced that that is an advantage, though. >That's the one [LTT] the two sides are disagreeing on, and >that's the one Searle's argument is decisive against. The TTT is >immune to Searle's argument and I've so far heard no non-hokey objection >to it. Go through this again, please? I think that Searle doesn't have an argument at all, but I fail to see how your TTT test makes any difference at all to his analysis. At any rate, it certainly is not obvious that Searle's argument is decisive, and that your reformulation is immune. But I'd be interested in hearing your justifications. -- Don Geddis -- Geddis@Polya.Stanford.Edu "We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control." - Pink Floyd