Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!shelby!csli!weyand From: weyand@csli.Stanford.EDU (Chris Weyand) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Can Machines Think? Keywords: Chinese Room, Searle Message-ID: <12214@csli.Stanford.EDU> Date: 12 Feb 90 05:13:05 GMT References: (14069@s.ms.uky.edu> <898D02hl87rd01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> Sender: weyand@csli.Stanford.EDU (Chris Weyand) Distribution: comp Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U. Lines: 147 kp@uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) writes: ::Finally, let's look at the case where Searle memorizes the rules and ::passes the Turing test without the books. Searle is correct to say that ::he still does not know Chinese. Anyone who knows both English and Chinese ::must be able to translate from one into the other, but Searle cannot. ::What he has learned by memorizing the rules is how to respond to Chinese ::questions. So he has some Chinese know-how, but no knowledge of Chinese. ::So I think the Chinese Room example has a real point. ::If asked in Chinese about the meaning of a Chinese phrase, Searle would ::no doubt be able to respond correctly. This might suggest that he does ::in fact "understand" Chinese. But notice that if his questioner should ::ask Searle his name, or the time of day, or the color of his tie, he ::would *not* be able to answer correctly. This is because Searle's rules ::are limited to procedures for manipulating Chinese symbols, and do not ::include procedures for looking at his watch or his tie. By learning the ::rules, Searle knows that the correct response to the Chinese question, ::"What is a tie?" is the Chinese answer "A strip of cloth worn around the ::neck." But he does not know that the Chinese phrase "your tie" denotes ::the strip of cloth around his own neck. That is why he can correctly ::claim that by learning the rules he does not learn Chinese. No! Searle's assumption is that the room answers "all" questions. This includes "what is your name?" If the questioner asked Searle for *his* name Searle would reply "Searle" (unless he asked in Chinese). If he asked in Chinese Searle may manipulate the book in which case the CR would respond with a name. Remember there are obviously two agents here; Searle and the Chinese speaker. Clearly a system couldn't pass the Turing Test if it couldn't answer questions that would (weakly) imply self- awareness. But Searle's assumption is that the CR does pass the TT! Searle rather than marvel at such a machine that could pass the TT would simply scoff and say "yea but it's still just a simulation" ::Searle is correct that the rules contain no information about Chinese ::semantics. But he is wrong about *why* that information is absent. He ::thinks that programs have no semantics, which is an obvious mistake. ::It is not because the Chinese responses are programmed that they have ::no semantics. Rather, the Turing test itself is too easy. Turing did ::not insist that the conversation in the imitation game include references ::to events outside the dialogue. The Turing test (as most people think of ::it) can be passed by a program that uses no semantic information. Absolutely not! The Turing Test if anything is too hard. Turing even acknowledge that himself. Turing didn't insist anything in particular about what the interregator should ask. He simply said that rather than ask the question "could a machine think" we should ask whether it can fool us into believing it is a person. Clearly for us to believe an agent was a person we would have to ask it all kinds of questions that referred to various events. We'd ask how they felt at the moment, if they like to read, to tell us a romantic story, to explain what it means to be conscious, whether or not it had free will, why? etc. ::Searle's argument revolves around the claim that information of a certain ::type - semantic information - cannot be learned by memorizing rules. ::Let's look more closely at what Searle can learn by memorizing rules. ::He would not learn the semantics of Chinese, but he might learn the syntax ::of Chinese. If he were asked in Chinese whether some expression were ::grammatically correct, he would apply the rules and produce the correct ::answer. If he were asked in English about the same Chinese phrase, he ::would _examine_ the rules, and perhaps find no rule which applies to the ::expression. Searle could infer that the expression is ungrammatical, on ::the assumption that the rules cover all valid Chinese expressions. If the ::rules cover ungrammatical expressions as well, there would probably be ::a small set of resonses to the effect of "I don't understand", and an ::examination of the rules would exhibit a large group of expressions for ::which the "I don't understand" symbol was the prescribed response. ::Depending on the sophistication of the rules, inferring the syntax of ::Chinese might be easy or hard, but by definition the rules contain all ::the information necessary to infer a complete specification of Chinese ::syntax. Since information content is invariant under inference, by ::learning the rules that enable him to pass the Chinese Turing Test, Searle ::_would_ learn Chinese syntax, and could apply that knowledge in English ::conversations (once he has performed the necessary inferences, no trivial ::task). Clearly Searle has internalized more than the rules of Chinese syntax. The CR can carry on a conversation well enough to pass the Turing Test. This obviuosly takes more intelligence than a natural language parsing system and look-up table. In effect Searle has internalized an entire brain/mind! A ridculous thought even in principle. Searle has grossly misled the reader who buys into this argument that since all of the system is in him and since he doesn't understand there is no understanding. ::Now suppose that Searle is provided with rules which not only allow him ::to pass the standard Turing test, but also enable him to answer Chinese ::questions about the color of his tie, and all the other everyday queries ::he might encounter living in China. When he is given the Chinese question ::"What color is your tie?" the rules will no doubt direct him to look at ::his tie, note its color, and select a Chinese symbol appropriate to that ::color. Clearly Searle is on his way to learning the semantics of the ::Chinese color vocabulary. The path from here to complete knowledge of ::Chinese semantics is difficult. Language-learning problems related to ::this have been studied by philosophers under the name "radical translation" ::or "radical interpretation". Armed with the rules for manipulating the ::symbols and the procedures for assigning symbols to observable qualities, ::Searle would be well prepared for the radical translation process. I think you are confused about the CR situation. Searle is only manipulating the signs and symbols of the book. The book with Searle manipulating it is another agent that happens to speak Chinese. If the interregators asked for the color of the agent's tie the CR would certainly not respond with the color of Searle's tie. The questions are not aimed towards Searle. This is all part of Searle's sophistry. He wants us to identify with him the manipulator (the CPU) and not with the Chinese Speaker embodied within the book. Obviuosly Searle doesn't understand a word of Chinese, Searle doesn't have to convince me of that. In Dennet and Hofstadter's "The Mind's I" Searle's article is included with comments from Hofstadter and Dennet. There rebuttal to Searle is very good and if you haven't read it I would refer you to it. I think you'll find it very interesting. ::So if we add the appropriate proviso to the Turing test, requiring that ::the system not only respond coherently in kind to Chinese questions, ::but also display native competence in Chinese descriptions of its physical ::environment, then by learning the same rules Searle _would_ learn Chinese. ::Or at least, he would have enough information to figure out Chinese. And ::that knowledge of Chinese would be part of Searle's own knowledge, not a ::part of some "second personality". At this point, I think I've dismembered ::Searle's original example, but I should anticipate a probable objection: ::(make that several objections) We don't need to add any proviso. We can ask whatever questions we want. There were never any constraints on the questions; hence the power of the test. It's possible that Searle could learn Chinese if he had some way of relating the symbols coming in to the room with the world. But more likely Searle would sit in the room for the rest of his life without ever knowing what he was doing. Searle is simply a symbol manipulator. ::I'll be thinking furiously and typing spasmodically for a day or two. ::In the meantime, I'd be delighted to get any feedback whatsoever on this ::article. I think it's pretty slick. ::Ken Presting Very interesting ideas I'll be reading. --Chris Weyand --weyand@csli.Stanford.Edu