Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!ames!elroy!orion.cf.uci.edu!uci-ics!venera.isi.edu!smoliar From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Question on Chinese Room argument Message-ID: <7732@venera.isi.edu> Date: 10 Mar 89 15:28:07 GMT References: <15470@cup.portal.com> Sender: news@venera.isi.edu Reply-To: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar) Organization: USC-Information Sciences Institute Lines: 25 In article harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) writes: > > >dan-hankins@cup.portal.com (Daniel B Hankins) Portal System (TM) wrote: > >" I see distributed intelligences every day. The most common form is >" called a committee. Another is called a bureaucracy. > >This is not relevant. Attributing "intelligence" in such cases is either >just an analogy or a figure of speech. Can a committee feel pain? If >not, then it can't understand either. > I see we're back to playing fast and loose with language (specifically words like "intelligence" and "understand") again. Any well-coordinated military seem (such as, for example, a tank crew) should be so closely knit that to call the union of that team an organic being is no mere metaphor. AS A TEAM, they will respond to stimuli of positive and negative reinforcement of their actions; and there is no reason why an outside observer would not say that the team is basically seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. It seems that Stevan's argument boils down to the assumption that certain words and phrases (such as "understand" and "feel pain") are ONLY applicable to humans. Stevan is certainly entitled to that assumption, but there seem to be enough of us willing to question it that he cannot try to promote it from "assumption" to "universal truth."