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Article 4990 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Challenge
Keywords: Searle, Chinese Room
Message-ID: <1992Apr8.182009.23909@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
Date: 8 Apr 92 18:20:09 GMT
References: <6419@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1992Apr1.150750.9618@cs.yale.edu> <6742@pkmab.se> <1992Apr7.223711.18902@psych.toronto.edu>
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Reply-To: bill@NSMA.AriZonA.EdU (Bill Skaggs)
Organization: Center for Neural Systems, Memory, and Aging
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In article <1992Apr7.223711.18902@psych.toronto.edu> 
michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>
>As I have tried to demonstrate repeatedly
>(but evidently to no avail) in this forum, the Chinese Room is merely
>a *demonstration* of the formal *claim* that syntax doesn't yield semantics.
>We can argue whether or not is it a good demonstration or not, but, as far
>as I interpret it, that is the role it plays in Searle's argument.

  If that were the whole story, I would have no problem with it; but
it isn't.

  As far as I can see, "syntax" is an aspect of "form", and "semantics"
is an aspect of "function".  So, "Syntax does not imply semantics" is
a special case of "Form does not imply function."  I agree with
this completely, at least in principle.  (Practically speaking,
form often says a great deal about function.)  I even agree
with Searle's claim that instantiating a set of syntactic rules
is not sufficient for semantics.  Semantics implies some sort of
connection with the real world, and syntactic rules alone cannot
force such a connection to exist.

  I disagree, though, that these arguments pose any kind of problem
for AI.  It is clear to me that the Chinese Room, and computer
programs in general, *do* have semantics.  The semantics are not
conferred by the formal structure alone; they are conferred by
the way the program is instantiated and interacts with the world.

	-- Bill


