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Article 2330 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: kohout@cs.umd.edu (Robert Kohout)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle's response to silicon brain?
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Date: 20 Dec 91 23:18:14 GMT
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victor yodaiken writes:
>
>Look, the claimed "counter-example" thought experiment began with an
>assumption which was, in essence, the same as the conclusion. That is,
>it was assumed that one could build digital computers which acted exactly
>like neurons and connect these up to model exactly the connections which
>are in the brain. Thus, it was assumed that one could build a silicon 
>device which would behave exactly like a human brain. It should not come
>as too much of a surprise, that one can conclude from this assumption that
>the silicon device would behave exactly like the human brain.
>
Please be careful. There is an enormous difference between a digital
computer and a silicon retina. In particular, a digital machine can
only approximate the behavior of a silicon retina. 

You seem to have missed the point of the argument. Searle postulates the
existence of a Turing intelligent program to show that the executor
of that program will not "understand" what it is doing. It is not enough
for Searle that the system do the right thing - he is not happy with
a perfectly well functioning Chinese Room, whereas you seem to be. If
you wish to defend Searle, it would help if you agreed with him.

Bob Kohout


