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From: throopw@agarn.dg.com (Wayne A. Throop)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Where might CR understanding come from (if it exists)
Message-ID: <4506@xyzzy.UUCP>
Date: 24 Mar 89 20:47:22 GMT
References: <Mar.4.00.45.52.1989.4435@elbereth.rutgers.edu> <9560@megaron.arizona.edu> <2568@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <4079@xyzzy.UUCP> <2599@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <4275@xyzzy.UUCP> <28867@sri-unix.SRI.COM>
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> ellis@unix.SRI.COM (Michael Ellis)
> [..the "systems reply" claim that the system posesses the understanding..]
> requires a leap of faith I'm willing to make for other
> humans, animals (and martians should they arrive), but not
> for an artifact whose design fails to include whatever
> relevant causes there may be to consciousness itself.

I'm not willing to make it easy either.  The commotion is over just
what constitutes "relevant causes".  I simply do not think that the
human brain has any mysterious "causal powers" that a computer
executing a suitable program does not.

>> [..the CR argument..]
>> doesn't "prove" anything at all, and convinces only those
>> who already agree with its disguised anthropocentric premises.
> What "anthropocentric" premises might those be? That subjective
> experience and intentional states with semantic content are real?
> That the subject under study is the human mind?

No.  The appeal is made through the argument that since Searle doesn't
understand, and since Searle (the human component) is where we would
normally look for understanding in such a system, the system must not
understand.  The conclusion simply doesn't follow.  It's rather like
finding a corpse stabbed to death, showing that the butler didn't do
it, and concluding that there was no homicide.

--
If someone tells me I'm not really conscious, I don't marvel about
how clever he is to have figured that out... I say he's crazy.
          --- Searle (paraphrased) from an episode of PBS's "The Mind"
--
Wayne Throop      <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw