Path: utzoo!censor!jeff From: jeff@censor.UUCP (Jeff Hunter) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Question on Chinese Room Argument Summary: understanding without grounding Message-ID: <416@censor.UUCP> Date: 16 Mar 89 08:18:36 GMT References: <4298@pt.cs.cmu.edu> Organization: Bell Canada, Business Development, Toronto Lines: 72 In article , harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) writes: > Of course I do. I have even agreed that a simulation of a plane or a > mind can symbolically encode (and aid us in discovering and testing) > ALL of the relevant causal and functional principles of flying and > understanding, respectively, that need to be known in order to > successfully implement a real plane that flies and a real mind that > understands. I simply deny that the simulation flies or understands. > > Now in the case of flying it's perfectly obvious why symbol-crunching > alone will never get you off the ground... But then again if all you want is a splashy picture for an aftershave ad then the simulation works just as well. Seriously, your analogy begs the question of whether understanding must have a physical implementation, and thus is not equal to simulated understanding. I understand your postings to say that a being which can understand must have physical components that are not mere transducers for the signals into and out of a symbol simulation. > It takes more (...) to ground > symbols than simply hooking peripherals onto a symbol-cruncher. Well... You have given two tests for "real" understanding. The TTT, and subjective feelings. I'll provide examples that pass these tests. 1) the TTT: (the same "irrelevant" example) Remove a person's brain and replace it with a detailed, real-time atomic-level simulation. Add transducers to convert real to simulated neural signals, and vice versa. (Do the same for blood flow and other details.) Now, this new person's simulated brain adequately reproduces "ALL of the relevant causal and functional principles" of the real brain, including the nerve signals. The behaviour of the human is unchanged. The human continues to be able to pass the TTT, although he is now a symbol cruncher with added peripherals. Please rebut, or stop talking about the TTT. As a side note I point out that this simulation captures any commonsense meaning of the word "understand". For example if I say "Hawking has a deep understanding of theoretical physics that has allowed him to make brilliant contributions to scientific knowledge." the sentence does not depend on whether or not Hawking's brain has been replaced with a simulation. (At least not when I say it :-) I'll coin the phrase "Searl-understanding" to denote the property that Searl claims is not captured by the above sense of the word. 2) introspection: When asked for an objective definition of understanding in a posting* Mr Harnad replied: >As stated many, many times in this discussion, and never confronted >or rebutted by anyone, this is not a definitional matter: I know >whether or not I understand a language without any need to define anything. (* Message-ID: ) Consider this: on New Year's eve the entire solar system was digitized and replaced by a symbolic simulation, a black hole, and a shell of transducers to translate incoming/outgoing radiation. Your current thoughts are simulations as are the ones at the time you wrote the above. Rebut, or conceed that introspection does not capture Searle-understanding (and vice versa). I believe that the "symbol groundings" that you have "proven" to be required for understanding systems are nothing more than the rules governing how a transducer handles a signal. This is not to say that your "mixed approach" as outline recently will be fruitless. It certainly uses more realistic hardware than my examples :-) However you have failed to prove that it is NECESSARY for any conceivable tasks. -- ___ __ __ {utzoo,lsuc}!censor!jeff (416-595-2705) / / /) / ) -- my opinions -- -/ _ -/- /- No one born with a mouth and a need is innocent. (__/ (/_/ _/_ Greg Bear