From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!aiai!jeff Thu Apr 16 11:33:31 EDT 1992
Article 4995 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Systems Reply I
Message-ID: <6590@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 8 Apr 92 20:08:36 GMT
References: <1992Mar28.141316.16968@oracorp.com>
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In article <1992Mar28.141316.16968@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>
>>It's always open to you to try to show that some argument against
>>computer understanding would also apply to humans. What's wrong, I
>>think, is to try to get out of this by demanding that other people
>>prove the opposite.
>
>I can only reiterate what I have said before.  If you wish to show that
>computers lack something that humans possess, it seems to me that you
>need to show (a) that computers lack it, and (b) that humans possess
>it. If you only prove (a) then you have not proved your point.

Not to your satisfaction, perhaps.  I see no reason to _prove_ that
humans have understanding in the sense required for the Chinese Room,
for instance.  I see no more need to prove this than to prove that
my coffee cup is not the most intelligent being in the universe.

What interests me in this is whether or not computers can understand,
and not in whether or not I can convince a determined skeptic that
humans can understand.  Other people may have different interests,
of course.

Now, if an argument against computer understanding also applied
to humans, I would regard that as reason to conclude the argument
was wrong.  But I'm certainly not going to conclude the argument
is wrong just because no one has yet shown it doesn't apply to humans.
Why should I?

-- jd


