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 Keywords: Understanding, Comprehension, Learning Message-ID: <7409@polya.Stanford.EDU> Date: 4 Mar 89 09:04:13 GMT References: <4298@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <9770@ihlpb.ATT.COM> Reply-To: geddis@polya.Stanford.EDU (Donald F. Geddis) Organization: Stanford University Lines: 61 In article harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) writes: >"The human," in case you've forgotten, is the only one in there [Chinese Room], besides >the chalk and blackboards! I'll let you be the judge of how good a judge >the chalk, or Searle-plus-chalk makes... Since the Systems Reply is exactly that Searle-plus-chalk-plus-blackboard-plus- rules *does* understand, doesn't this "answer" seem a little unfair. Rather than present arguments against the Systems Reply, Stevan seems to be appealing to our intuitive sense of "well, come on, *everyone* knows that this is foolish". But a good many well-educated people who have thought hard about the problem don't consider it to be foolish, so a little more effort on the rebuttal is required... >Don't forget that there was a PREMISE in all this, which Searle >adopted, from Strong AI, FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT, which was that the >LTT (sic) could be successfully passed (till doomsday!) by symbol >manipulation alone. [without being embedded with sensors, etc.] >... >It is of course quite possible that this premise is false. (I, for one, >believe it is false, and in my paper I give reasons why.) Strangely enough, I agree with your prediction, and with your solution. But that is not important for the Chinese Room argument. You could start with a robot that is embedded in the world, and after it achieves full understanding (the same way humans do: learning within the context of a society), then you can disconnect the sensors and effectors and leave only a teletype to the outside world. Sounds a lot like Stephen Hawking in real life, no? Suddenly, the LTT (i.e., the original Turing Test) returns. Why make the claim that the understand, to which you agreed before, suddenly disappears? In other words, while you may be correct that understanding (getting the proper set of rules) is impossible without being embedded in the world, why make this part of the test? It's just an implementation issue... >Look, do you think an inert book of rules is capable of understanding? >If you do, then you'll have no trouble believing that stones, chalk, >constellations and tea-leaves are capable of understanding too, and I >certainly won't be able to prove you wrong. Not at all. The complexities of the systems varies widely. In particular, some (very small fraction) of things can pass the Turing Test (LTT). > (Animism or panpsychism -- >the belief that anything and everything can have a mind -- is the other >side of the other-minds problem.) But if we assume that we need a bit >more than that -- say, the ability to pass the LTT [sic] -- then >Searle's Argument is there to show us that that's just not good enough, >because he can pass the LTT for Chinese without understanding Chinese. Tsk, tsk. No he can't. The Chinese room does. >And he's all there is to the "system." Completely, 100%, false. Wrong. Incorrect. The Chinese Room contains Searle AND THE RULES. And the system as a whole DOES understand, as evidenced by the Chinese answers to Chinese questions. -- Don Geddis -- Geddis@Polya.Stanford.Edu "We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control." - Pink Floyd