Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!muttiah
From: muttiah@cs.purdue.EDU (Ranjan Samuel Muttiah)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Searle again
Message-ID: <9212@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
Date: 11 Jan 90 03:51:20 GMT
References: <1953@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca>
Sender: news@cs.purdue.EDU
Reply-To: muttiah@cs.purdue.edu (Ranjan Samuel Muttiah)
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Purdue University
Lines: 23

In article <1953@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca> utility@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Ronald BODKIN) writes:
>(More on the Chinese Room)
>	One thing I'm curious about is why everyone ignores the book
>with the instructions in it when it comes to understanding.  If I have
>a computer that "understands" Chinese, with a cpu and a memory and I
>sever the two there is no way that either would understand.  Likewise,
>Searle provides the processor and the book provides the memory.  The
>system understands, and if it seems weird to have understanding disembodied
>in a system like this, then its also weird to having processing severed.





For a more provocative reading on this checked out:

		Mind and Brain, the many-facted problems
		Ed. Sir John Eccles.

		- Pay close attention to the chapter by one 
		J. Pringle(Ox. Zoologist) and the commentary 
		by J. Josephson (Cam. Physicist. Yes, the 
		Josephson junction man).