Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucsd!orion.cf.uci.edu!uci-ics!zardoz!tgate!irsx01!ka3ovk!drilex!axiom!linus!mbunix!bwk From: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Question on Chinese Room Argument Summary: Yet another line of reasoning. Keywords: Speed and Complexity Message-ID: <45975@linus.UUCP> Date: 6 Mar 89 13:49:21 GMT References: <4298@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <7408@polya.Stanford.EDU> geddis@polya.Stanford.EDU (Donald F. Geddis) writes: > In article > harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) writes (in reply > to a posting of mine): > > See earlier replies on "speed and complexity." This is just > > hand-waving. It's equivalent to taking a dumb toy model and saying > > "Just more of the same will pass the TT and will have a mind." I think > > the gap is not one of speed and complexity but missing, > > yet-to-be-discovered substantive functional concepts (and not just > > symbolic ones!). > I agree that complexity arguments are not important for this thought > experiment. But it is useful to be aware that our intuitions about how > small rule sets function probably don't scale up well to large rule sets. > In no way am I claiming that this is sufficient to create intelligence; > I just don't want you to appeal to the triviality of small symbol > processing in order to claim that large symbol processing won't work either. The above passage notwithstanding, I find an interesting passage in William Poundstone's new book, _Labyrinths of Reason_, pp. 235-236: "It is conceivable that each of 100 billion neurons plays some part in actual or potential mental process. You might expect then, that the instructions for manipulating Chinese symbols as a human does would have to involve at least 100 billion distinct instructions. If there is one instruction per page, that would mean 100 billion pages. So the "book" _What to Do If They Shove Chinese Writing Under the Door_ would more realistically be something like 100 million volumes of a thousand pages each. That's approximateley a hundred times the amount of printed matter in the New York City library. This figure may be off by a few factors of 10, but it is evident that there is no way anyone could memorized the instructions. Nor could they avoid using scratch paper, or better, a massive filing system. "It's not just a matter of the algorithm *happening* to be impractically bulky. The Chinese algorithm encapsulates much of the human thought process, including a basic stock of common knowledge (such as how people act in restaurants). Can a human brain memorize something as complex as a human brain? Of course not. You cannot do it any more than you can eat something that is bigger than you are." Those readers who enjoy paradoxes such as the Chinese Room will find Poundstone's book a delightful read. --Barry Kort