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From: lambert@cwi.nl (Lambert Meertens)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Chinese Room argument
Keywords: Chair and /char/ alike.
Message-ID: <7947@boring.cwi.nl>
Date: 10 Mar 89 00:55:39 GMT
References: <2125@star.cs.vu.nl> <46017@linus.UUCP>
Sender: news@cwi.nl
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 43

In article <46017@linus.UUCP> bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry Kort) writes:
) Consider a child who hears an adult utter the phonetic sequence,
) /char/, while pointing to this object:
) 
) 	|
) 	|
) 	|___
) 	|   |
) 	|   |
) 
) Years later, the child hears her teacher utter /char/ while scribbling
) this cryptic rune on the blackboard:
) 
) 	CHAIR
) 
) It seems to me that the child "understands" when she makes the
) connection between the tangible, visible object upon which she
) is sitting, the utterance, /char/, and the scribble "CHAIR".
) 
) The problem with the LTT, is that only one symbol reposes in the
) artificial mind, instead of the three inter-related representations
) of the same real-world object.

We could ask the LTT candidate:

    Which letter looks more like a chair, "h" or "j"?

    What rhymes with "chair", "choir" or "heir"?

and more refined questions, to examine if he/she/it really "understands"
what a chair is.

I see no reason why an artificial construct could not avail of several
alternative symbolic representations, some of which are suitable for
answering such questions; in fact, writing a program that could entertain
such dialogues for a limited domain of discourse seems quite feasible to
me.  A far harder task would be to make a program that could sensibly
discuss why some jokes are funnier than others, even though that is much
more "linguistic".

-- 

--Lambert Meertens, CWI, Amsterdam; lambert@cwi.nl