Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!haven!uflorida!gatech!ncsuvx!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!agarn!throopw
From: throopw@agarn.dg.com (Wayne A. Throop)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Where might CR understanding come from (if it exists)
Message-ID: <4079@xyzzy.UUCP>
Date: 13 Mar 89 21:37:53 GMT
References: <Mar.4.00.45.52.1989.4435@elbereth.rutgers.edu> <9560@megaron.arizona.edu> <2568@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
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> gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton)
> I am a
> holist, but I don't see how an attribute of a part can be transferred
> to the whole if it doesn't exist in the part.

No problem, the systems reply doesn't claim that understanding was
"transfered" to the whole system from Searle... it claims that the
whole system understands as an emergent property, as a consequence
of the arrangement of the rules for which Searle just happens to be
an interpreter.  Understanding is a property of a process interacting
(however indirectly) with the object of understanding.

> The interesting thing
> about systems is the attributes of the whole which CANNOT be attributes
> of the parts, not true here I'm afraid.

Why isn't it true here?  I'm under the impression that it IS true here.

--
"This is just the sort of thing that people never believe."
                              --- Baron Munchausen
--
Wayne Throop      <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw