Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!ukc!etive!aipna!rjc From: rjc@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Richard Caley) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Question on Chinese Room Argument Message-ID: <610@aipna.ed.ac.uk> Date: 6 Mar 89 03:04:42 GMT References: <9546@megaron.arizona.edu> Reply-To: rjc@uk.ac.ed.aipna (Richard Caley) Organization: Dept. of AI, Edinburgh, UK Lines: 29 Dragon: Yevaud In article harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) writes: >mike@arizona.edu (Mike Coffin) of U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson writes: >" 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. So? Searle is standing in for the computer, the computer therefore does not understand. Nobody, I hope, was arguing contrary. As Mike said, the computer + the algorithm ( Searle + the rules ) may or may not understand. Searle is acting as an interpreter, I have in another window on this screen an interpreter running a screen editor - the interpreter is not an editor; the combination of interpreter and program is an editor. Substitute 'understands chinese' for 'is an editor'. -- rjc@uk.ac.ed.aipna "Politics! You can wrap it up in fancy ribbons, but you can't hide the smell" - Jack Barron