Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!bbn!oberon!aero!venera.isi.edu!smoliar
From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: THE MIND EXTENDS BEYOND THE SKIN
Keywords: Mind, Brain, Robots, Searle
Message-ID: <7773@venera.isi.edu>
Date: 14 Mar 89 14:50:05 GMT
References: <305@edai.ed.ac.uk> <7337@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Sender: news@venera.isi.edu
Reply-To: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar)
Organization: USC-Information Sciences Institute
Lines: 52

In article <7337@boulder.Colorado.EDU> hassell@monarch.Colorado.EDU
(Christopher Hassell) writes:
>In article <305@edai.ed.ac.uk> cam@edai.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes
(quoting Gregory Bateson):
>
># But it would be incorrect to say that the main business of the
># computer --- the transformation of input differences into output
># differences [i.e. symbol crunching]--- is "a mental process".  The
># computer is only an arc of a larger circuit which always includes a
># man and an environment form which information is received and and upon
># which efferent messages from the computer have effect.  This total
># system, or ensemble, may legitimately be said to show mental
># characteristics. It operates by trial and error and has creative
># character.
>
>With what he goes on to say, you might want to ask what ANY definition of
>a "mind" might be.  I find the limit of the skin to be quite appropriate
>because we MUST deal with it ourselves and also try to develop a computer
>that can attempt to deal WITHIN a framework itself.
>
Actually, this reminds me of the old puzzle about whether a tree which falls
when no one hears it makes a sound.  It would seem that what Bateson is saying
is that "mind" is a process which EMERGES from interactions "beyond the skin."
Thus, it goes one step beyond the "systems argument" which Searle attempts to
object to.  Searle wants to argue about whether or not a collection of simple
agents (call them neurons or symbol processors or whatever) can have properties
AS A COLLECTION which none of the components have as individual members of the
collection.  Anyone who has worked with systems know that such properties do
indeed exist;  but both Searle and Harnad would have us believe that
"understanding" is too sacrosanct to be such a property.

Bateson takes another approach which seems a little less awestruck with the
need to distinguish man from machine.  He is saying, as I understand it, that
"mind" cannot emerge merely from the interactions of components within an
individuals body but, rather, from the interactions of that body and its
components with other exterior entities.  In other words, Bateson seems
to be buying into the "systems argument;"  but he wants to extend the
boundaries of the system beyond those considered by Searle . . . outside
the man in the room, outside the room itself, to include the room and anything
(human or otherwise) which might interact with it.

I, for one, happen to like this new spin on things.  I regard it as further
evidence of how careful we have to be when we approach a word like
"understand."  It seems as if Bateson is saying that asking whether
or not the man in the room understands Chinese is a silly question,
and asking whether or not the "system" of the room and all its interacting
contents understands Chinese is no better.  My reading of Bateson is that
he feels the only appropriate question to ask is whether or not there is
a manifestation of understanding in the interactions that a Chinese person
has with the room.  Since Searle seems to have deliberately set up his GEDANKEN
experiment to assure such a manifestation, there does not seem to be much room
(pun intended?) for argument.