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From: weeks@ssbell.IMD.Sterling.COM (John Weeks)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: What the Chinese Room is
Message-ID: <658@ssbell.IMD.Sterling.COM>
Date: 7 Feb 90 15:19:00 GMT
References: <2602@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu> <1990Jan9.162338.28110@twwells.com> <9458@cbmvax.commodore.com> <21866@unix.cis.pitt.edu> <1990Jan27.004920.28355@agate.berkeley.edu> <466@althea.UUCP> <3488@accuvax.nwu.edu> <1990Feb5.193530.13545@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <3567@ac
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In article <3567@accuvax.nwu.edu> cliff@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (Cliff Chaput) writes:
>Does one have to be aware of a fact to know it?  It is clear that we know
>how to breathe.  We are rarely aware of our breathing (though we would
>surely be aware if we stopped).  We know how to talk, to speak in coherent
>sentences.  But do we know the rules by which thought is produced?  Planets
>circle the Sun according to the laws of physics.  But do the planets know
>physics?
>
>The fact is that knowledge can exist without human awareness.  Even if all
>people were to die, the Earth wouldn't stop revolving about the Sun.  Even
>if you remove human knowledge from the human, the knowledge is still there.
>This is how we can store knowledge in history books, encyclopedias, and
>Mathematica programs.

I guess I've got to get my 2 cents in here.  I think that throughout this
Chinese Room thread there has been a systematic ambiguity in the use of the
terms "to know" and "knowledge."  There are at least three uses involved,
two major and one minor use.  The minor one is of knowledge in the sense of
a body of facts or wisdom.  I don't think that this sense has much relevance
to the CR.

The other two senses have been distinguished at least since Plato: techne and
episteme, techne being an ability - knowing how to breathe or how to ride
a bicycle, episteme refering to a propositional attitude - knowing *that*
such and such is the case.  (This distinction is preserved in some languages
other than English: kennen and wissen in German, for example.)

There are arguments for saying that the Chineses Room knows, in the sense
of having the ability to "speak", Chinese although these arguments would not 
support the thesis that the Chinese Room has any propositional attitudes at 
all (knowing, believing, doubting ...)
-- 
John Weeks    				Phone:	(402) 291-8300 
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