Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!cogsci!dave From: dave@cogsci.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Question on Chinese Room Argument Summary: Aren't minds weird things? Message-ID: <18451@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> Date: 11 Mar 89 05:28:15 GMT References: <2233@tank.uchicago.edu> Sender: root@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu Reply-To: dave@cogsci.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) Organization: Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University Lines: 66 Just very briefly. I don't want to drag this discussion out even longer... In article <2233@tank.uchicago.edu> staff_bob@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: >In article <18073@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>, dave@cogsci.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes... > >>Answer me these questions. >> (1) Do you believe neurons (taken alone) have semantics. >> [I take it the answer has to be "No."] >> (2) Do you believe the brain as a whole has semantics. >> [I take it the answer is "Yes."] >> >The term 'semantics' comes out of linguistics, and is not a synonym >for the more general term, 'meaning'. One cannot discuss semantics outside >of the context of a language. For a given, well-formed expression in any >language, the semantics of that expression is what it is intended to signify. >Thus, generally, we can say that the semantics of a sentence is its meaning. Sorry, I wasn't using the term "semantics" in its linguistic sense. I was using it in the more general sense of "meaning" or "representational richness" or whatever that weird thing is that goes on in a human mind. This is the sense in which the word is used by Searle (and quite a few others, incidentally). I'm sorry if it confused you. >To excuse the misuse of the word "semantics", let us substitute some other, >more general term, such as meaning (or perhaps the U-word, understanding). >Then I would have to say that the answer to [2] is no. It is certainly possible >to claim that meaning does not exist in the brain, it exists in the mind. Well, if you like. But most of us believe that minds are heavily dependent on brains for their existence. So whether it is the brain or the mind which supports meaning (and I'm tempted to say that it's only a "semantic" question), nevertheless the existence of a brain seems sufficient to produce minds and thus meaning (or whatever that word is). >A lot of people have grappled with this question, none to the general >satisfaction of the rest of humanity. The recent debate in this news >group in re Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment hinges on the >Mind/Body question. Is not the premise of Searles argument just that >understanding only occurs in Mind, and Mind exists neither in the system >(Searle+rules) nor in a computer? IMHO, thia entire debate has revolved around >these two assertions, neither of which can be proven or disproven. I agree (mostly). Searle's Chinese Room is only a mystery in that the Mind- Body problem is also a mystery. The whole question is: how can something as strange as a mind emerge from a mere physical system? Despite 2000+ years work, still nobody can answer this satisfactorily, though I like to think that people are getting closer. (Surely we have made some advances on Descartes' dualism, for instance?) I believe that late 20th century abstract functionalism is the first theory which has even a chance of being correct, although it still has a lot of problems. A discussion of the more general issues of the Mind/Body problem might be fun, incidentally, independent of the thrashed-to-death rehashing of Searle. >What can possibly be gained from this debate over Searle's thought experiment? >Assuming that we could come to some sort of universal agreement about >this (and I really don't think that is possible) will it make a single >iota of difference to the work we're doing? Is this not really a theological >debate, more than anything else? That is to say, aren't the arguments >we have seen to this point really defenses of various faiths in the >possiblilty of machine 'awareness'? Can't we let that debate wait until >we're a little bit closer to something called machine intelligence? What? And put us philosophers out of a job? Dave Chalmers (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)