Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!sksircar
From: sksircar@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Subrata Sircar)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Why the Chinese Room doesn't convince
Keywords: Searle, Chinese Room, semantics
Message-ID: <14060@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 23 Feb 90 04:03:56 GMT
References: <11965@venera.isi.edu> <9e9S02fk8akc01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Reply-To: sksircar@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Subrata Sircar)
Organization: SPAMIT
Lines: 30

kp@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) writes:
>Let me now return to the Chinese Room.  I think that Searle's arguments
>show *nothing* about the limitations of so-called symbolic or algorithmic
>processing.  Personally, I find it difficult to distinguish (on any
>philosophical grounds) between algorithmic and any other kind of
>processing.  The Differential Analyser was not only analog, but also
>mechanical, yet its input graph is one commonplace notation for specifying
>a function.  On the other hand, I find it amusing to imagine a plugboard
>as an expression in a formal syntax, yet that was a preferred technique
>for programming the early digital machines (such as ENIAC).

Actually, Searle hasn't even proven anything about understanding; his argument
that the Chinese room doesn't "understand" Chinese is based upon an appeal to
the emotions of the reader, in the sense that "Surely this isn't what you do
when YOU hear English?!?"  He fails to show by analysis or otherwise, that this
is not what humans do when they process language (maybe it is all just table
lookups and regurgitation of previously heard sentences according to rules
we learn at some point) or even that this "understanding" he seeks makes a 
difference, even on philosophical grounds.  IMO, his arguments are mostly of
the form "This setup seems not to "understand", hence no computer can acheive
artificial intelligence."




-- 
Subrata K. Sircar, Prophet & Charter Member of SPAMIT(tm)
sksircar@phoenix.princeton.edu       SKSIRCAR@PUCC.BITNET
"I don't want the world. I just want your half." -
They Might Be Giants (Ana Ng)