Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!philmtl!philabs!linus!mbunix!bwk
From: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Kort)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Can humans "understand" mathematics?
Summary: Understanding Mathematics as a Metaphor for the Chinese Room
Keywords: Chinese Room, Formal Symbol Manipulation, Physical Causation
Message-ID: <83168@linus.UUCP>
Date: 14 Dec 89 02:04:05 GMT
References: <3120@uceng.UC.EDU> <14698@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Sender: news@linus.UUCP
Reply-To: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry Kort)
Organization: The MITRE Corp. Bedford, MA
Lines: 22

In article <14698@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> rapaport@gort.cs.Buffalo.EDU.UUCP
(William J. Rapaport) reacts to Dan Mocsny's objection to Searle's
assertion that symbol manipulation cannot engender understanding:

 > Precisely this analogy is discussed in:

 > Rapaport, William J. (1986), ``Searle's Experiments with Thought,''
 > Philosophy of Science 53:  271-279

 > and in

 > Rapaport, William J. (1988), ``Syntactic Semantics:  Foundations
 > of Computational Natural-Language Understanding,'' in J. H. Fetzer (ed.)
 > Aspects of Artificial Intelligence (Dordrecht, Holland:  Kluwer Academic
 > Publishers):  81-131

Bill, could you favor us lazy net.readers with a synopsis?  Did you
come to the same conclusion as Dan?  I for one, am persuaded that
one can detect the isomorphism between a formal symbol system and
real-world experience.  I do it whenever I adopt an apt metaphor.

--Barry Kort