Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!xanth!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!agarn!throopw From: throopw@agarn.dg.com (Wayne A. Throop) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Where might CR understanding come from (if it exists) Message-ID: <4275@xyzzy.UUCP> Date: 20 Mar 89 19:07:55 GMT References: <9560@megaron.arizona.edu> <2568@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <4079@xyzzy.UUCP> <2599@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> Sender: usenet@xyzzy.UUCP Lines: 34 >,>>> gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) >> throopw@dg-rtp.dg.com (Wayne Throop) >>> 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. > Usually, a system possesses attributes which no part *CAN* possess, > and thus does not possess. > Here, the part Searle can possess understanding. But the relevant part, the one pointed to to (attempt to) show the shortcomings of the CR, is not "Searle", but rather "Searle blindly following rules". "Searle blindly following rules" cannot (by definition of what it means to blindly follow rules) understand. Even if Searle goes out and learns Chinese, "Searle blindly following rules" does not, in any relevant sense, understand Chinese. The systems reply is that Searle-plus-the-rules *does* understand. ( Of course, Searle's reply to the systems reply is moot, because he assumes the conscious mind of Searle has access to all capabilities of all systems operating in the physical system of Searle's brain, despite the copious evidence that this is not the case (eg, savant talents, multiple personalities). ) In fact, the whole CR argument is a simple and blatant appeal to anthropomorphism, an anecdote with no force of formal reasoning behind it. It doesn't "prove" anything at all, and convinces only those who already agree with its disguised anthropocentric premises. -- "Who would be fighting with the weather like this?" "Only a lunatic." "So you think D'Artagnian is involved?" --- Porthos, Athos, and Aramis. -- Wayne Throop !mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw