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From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc,comp.ai
Subject: Re: Why the Chinese Room doesn't convince
Message-ID: <12038@venera.isi.edu>
Date: 26 Feb 90 23:37:09 GMT
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In article <6595@cps3xx.UUCP> sticklen@cpswh.cps.msu.edu (Jon Sticklen) writes:
>
>i have a similar intuition as stephen that symbol level processing 
>is not everything. but i find his arguments not compelling me toward 
>that conclusion.
>
>where is the compelling support for sub-symbolic storage and retrieval
>in stephen's example?
>
Actually, it was not my intention to muster "compelling support for
sub-symbolic storage and retrieval."  My goal was much more modest.
I simply wished to point out that we should be skeptical in Ken's
claim that all information "can be expressed and processed in symbolic
form."  My personal feeling is that the term "sub-symbolic" is in danger
of a modest level of abuse from a variety of different connectionist camps,
each of which has a different angle on how they want to use it.  I would prefer
to punt on the term altogether and try to be a bit more specific in saying what
constitutes an alternative to a symbolic approach.

The reason I cited Minsky is that the alternative I am most interested in
pursuing is one based on processes.  Yes, THE SOCIETY OF MIND has returned
us to the old procedural/declarative controversy;  but, hopefully, we have
a bit more experience in the varieties of knowledge representation this time
around.  My question is:  Can we define some collection of relatively simply
processes whose activities yield behaviors which outside observers may describe
as the formation of categories and the assignment of labels to those
categories?  One of the major punch lines of Gerald Edelman's NEURAL
DARWINISM is that algorithms based on selection from a population may
allow us to deal with the first half of this question--category formation.
Supposedly, he is taken on the assignment and manipulation of labels (which
brings us into the realm of symbols) in his new book, THE REMEMBERED SELF;
but I have not progressed far enough in reading it to comment as to how
successful he has been.  If he pulls it off, then he may have a foundation
for how symbol-manipulating behavior may be an emergent property of processes
which are not, themselves, symbol manipulating.

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