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From: ellis@chips.sri.com (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: more Chinese Room
Message-ID: <7784@unix.SRI.COM>
Date: 9 Jan 90 22:06:36 GMT
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Reply-To: ellis@chips.sri.com.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
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Organization: Berkeley Private Language Institute
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> T. William Wells

>..there is another, more serious, flaw in his [Searle's]  argument.

>Suppose that the assignment of meaning is a process rather than a
>static relationship. Were that so, the Chinese room would be
>irrelevant, since it only corresponds to a particular process.

    This is hard to make sense of. In what way do either Searle or
    "Strong AI" imply that meaning-assignment is any of a {static
    relationship, process, particular process}? Are you saying that
    Searle thinks meaning assignment is a static relationship? Or are
    you saying that Strong AI makes that claim? Forgive me if I seem
    dense,  but I can't quite tell what you're getting at.

>Hence his assertion that he has demonstrated that strong AI is
>false is simply false.

    Perhaps you could clarify this criticism. 

>Just to add a little "balance", I don't find the arguments on the
>other side particularly compelling, either. And, in fact, their
>arguments fall to the same point: intelligence is very definitely
>*not* an I/O mapping. It is a process.

     Aren't instantiations of programs that map transducer inputs to
     effector outputs processes? Or do you have some special
     definition of "process" in mind?

>My own view is that, until we have a reasonable idea of how
>consciousness operates, arguing about whether computers can be
>conscious is about as anachronistic as arguing about the number of
>angels that can dance on the head of a pin.

    If somebody said that minds are just numbers or laboratory tables
    or planetary orbits, don't you think we'd have good reason to deny
    their claim? 

-michael