From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wupost!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!cam Wed Dec 18 16:02:17 EST 1991
Article 2201 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wupost!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!cam
>From: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: From neurons to computation: how?
Message-ID: <16058@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 17 Dec 91 18:49:33 GMT
References: <12665@pitt.UUCP> <60022@netnews.upenn.edu> <12686@pitt.UUCP>
Organization: Edinburgh University
Lines: 22

In article <12686@pitt.UUCP> geb@dsl.pitt.edu (gordon e. banks) writes:

>Oh, I've never believed that standard AI (von Neumann processors
>and all that) is going to be able to build a real artificial
>intelligence.  I thought Searle went further than that and
>said that it wasn't possible to make an artificial intelligence.

No. Searle simply claims that it will not be possible to make an
artificial intelligence simply by running the right kind of program;
or, to put it another way, by purely syntactic operations on symbol
strings.

>If he thinks the brain is a machine, then whyever not?  Does he
>think the machine is so complex as to be beyond the realm of human
>understanding?

No, he simply thinks that it is not the kind of machine decribed in my
previous paragraph.
-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh          +44 (0)31 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205


