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Article 3966 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: orourke@unix1.cs.umass.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <43846@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: 24 Feb 92 17:31:59 GMT
References: <1992Feb19.013515.26133@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1992Feb19.172251.7320@psych.toronto.edu> <43686@dime.cs.umass.edu> <1992Feb21.012616.9016@husc3.harvard.edu>
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Reply-To: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Organization: Smith College, Northampton, MA, US
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In article <1992Feb21.012616.9016@husc3.harvard.edu> 
	zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>In article <43686@dime.cs.umass.edu> 
>orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>>Douglas Hofstadter provides a counter-reply in "The Minds I."
>
>So perhaps you could oblige me by summarizing Hofstadter's counter-reply for
>my own consideration.

And in article <1992Feb22.234252.17095@psych.toronto.edu>
	christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>Please tell me what you find "good" about Hofstadter & Dennett's reply.
>I have it here in front of me and it seems to boil down to "no human
>could ever memorize all those symbols and rules." 

	I will no doubt regret this because I don't have it here
in front of me; and Hofstadter's writing style does lend itself
to precise summary in any case.  But my recollection is that
Hofstadter tried to illuminate the "rhetorical tricks," but then
also provided a more substantive critique.  His argument was not
simply that no human could memorize all the rules.  He pointed
that out so that the reader would be aware that when Searle
leans on their intuition by saying "obviously the system doesn't
understand," it is not so obvious, because the situation is so
unrealistic that intuition is a poor guide.
	His more substantive critique hinged on Searle asking
the memorizer if he understood Chinese.  In his SciAm article
(which I do have in front of me), Searle says, "There is nothing
in the 'system' that is not in me, and since I don't understand
Chinese," etc.  Hofstadter likened asking the daemon executing 
the program whether it understands Chinese, to asking the neurons
if they understand Chinese.  Asking the daemon is not asking
the system.  This is clearer if one imagines the program being
executed by a billion tiny daemons.
	Searle identifies the system with the memorizer, and so
concludes that the system doesn't understand because the memorizer
doesn't understand.  Hofstadter says the system does understand,
even though the memorizer does not.
	Hofstadter may have had other major criticisms, but that
is the one that I recall, and perhaps is the point to which Dennett
refers when he says this counter-reply has never been addressed
by Searle.
	Anyone with "The Mind's I" handy could correct my interpretation
above.


