Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!oravax!daryl
From: daryl@oravax.UUCP (Steven Daryl McCullough)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Recursive Searles, or what?
Message-ID: <1224@oravax.UUCP>
Date: 5 Jan 90 22:55:13 GMT
References: <12679@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <12702@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <GILHAM.90Jan5125405@cassius.csl.sri.com>
Organization: Odyssey Research Associates, Ithaca NY
Lines: 50
Summary: Hooray! Finally a correct statement of what the Chinese room proves.

In article <GILHAM.90Jan5125405@cassius.csl.sri.com>, gilham@csl.sri.com (Fred
Gilham) writes:

> [...stuff deleted...]
> Now as far as the Chinese Room not understanding, if we take the case
> where the rules are in books etc., the question is, ``What physical
> entity understands, if not Searle?''  I think we would all agree that
> books and ink are not things that can understand.  The only actor in
> the system is Searle.  If he doesn't understand, what does?  If Searle
> memorizes the rules, then he is the ONLY physical entity left that
> could be understanding, so I would think you have to ask him, or test
> him.
> 
> Even if the system prints (in Chinese), ``I understand Chinese'', it
> really doesn't matter.  That is because it is easy to produce a set of
> rules that will cause a system to print ``I understand Chinese'',
> whether it does or not.
> 
> If we assume, even so, that there is a ``system'' that understands,
> then Penrose, in THE EMPEROR'S NEW MIND, has pointed out that this is
> equivalent to postulating a ``mind-stuff'' apart from the physical
> entities that exist.  This is known as dualism and most AI folk seem
> to want to avoid such a viewpoint.  While the argument as a whole does
> not PROVE that the Chinese Room does not understand Chinese, it does
> show that no physical entity in the Chinese Room understands Chinese.
> 
> -Fred Gilham   gilham@csl.sri.com

Hooray! Finally there is a statement about what the Chinese Room
proves that makes sense. I will agree that no physical entity in the
Chinese Room understands, but I think it is because *physical
entities* do not understand, *systems* do.

Roger Penrose is simply wrong to say that is equivalent to postulating
"mind-stuff". The systems reply takes it that a mind is a *pattern*
produced by physical entities, and is not the entities themselves.
This is no more dualism than is believing that sound is a vibration in
physical matter, but is not itself matter, or that heat is a property
of substances but is not itself a substance.

When you say something like "I understand English", what is the "I"
that understands? You (and Searle) seem to think it is a physical
entity, a particular human body. I don't think that is right, at all.
After all, as the old chestnut goes, you replace all the atoms in your
body every seven years or so. Any mind that can remember back to your
childhood cannot be completely associated with any particular physical
entity.

Daryl McCullough
AKA Mr. Know-it-all