Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!uwm.edu!ogicse!decwrl!shelby!neon!arm
From: arm@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Alexander d Macalalad)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: more Chinese Room
Message-ID: <1990Feb24.023246.29073@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 24 Feb 90 02:32:46 GMT
References: <1990Feb13.225830.13432@wam.umd.edu> <53tT02R288oV01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <1990Feb16.182519.18166@wam.umd.edu> <1990Feb16.220511.27647@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <857@wrs.wrs.com>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Lines: 61

In article <857@wrs.wrs.com> hwajin@wrs.wrs.com () writes:
>At least one couter-example to this would be Helen Keller.  
>Studies show that if the left hemisphere of a brain is damanged
>after the appearance of language but before the age of 8 or 9, the
>child nearly always recovers language in a period ranging from a few
>months to three years [note: this is not a "understood" phenomena.]

I agree that the brain can compensate to a certain extent for damage
to certain areas by shifting the affected functions to other areas.
Perhaps my brain/hardware analogy was too strong.  My point was that
there is an area in the brain, though not necessarily in the same
location for everyone, which is crucial for language understanding
as we perceive it.  In other words, when Searle says that the person
in the Chinese room cannot understand Chinese even after memorizing
all of the rules, he means that the person is not using his language
centers to interpret Chinese.  This does not rule out the possibility
that understanding is taking place elsewhere in his brain, in a fashion
that he does not recognize as understanding taking place.

>The idea that one can definitely identify a corresponding
>physical parts of anything that is non-physical seems to
>be also based on the same old Cartesian model of world view;
>everything has to be clearly categorized, labeled and analysed
>to the littlest components.  There is always a clear distinction
>between things material and things spiritual.

This point confuses me.  If I understand correctly, your general
point is that it is wrong to map language understanding to a 
specific part of the brain.  I agree: as I understand it, current
theories move away from this compartmentalized view of the brain.
Let me make my point more carefully.  The way in which we normally
understand language, which has in some sense been hardwired during
childhood, is different from how we might understand language given
the rules of the Chinese room, so different that WE WOULD NOT
RECOGNIZE THE UNDERSTANDING AS UNDERSTANDING.

I'm not sure what this has to do with Descartes, though.  I've
always thought that his major contribution to philosophy was the
separation of mind and matter, which is certainly not what I'm
proposing.  Analytic thought in general is much older than Descartes.
Look at Aristotle, for example.  Perhaps you were thinking of Kant,
whose distinction between the phenomena and the noumena can be seen
in the distinction of the observer and his or her observations.  In
any case, I don't see what any of this has to do with spirituality.

>Unfortunately this types of thinking hinders further progress
>in many disciplines of studies.  As Newtonian physics was blinded
>by the basis established by Descartes, current sciences are
>terminally handicapped by the followers of the Cartesian philosophy.

Again, some strong comments against Descartes.  I always thought that
Newtonian physics was based on Euclidean geometry and the idea that
space and time had an absolute frame of reference, both of which
predate Descartes.  And I certainly don't see how current sciences
are "handicapped."

>-- 
>Hwa Jin Bae (hwajin@wrs.com)
>Wind River Systems

Alex Macalalad