From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Wed Feb 26 12:54:06 EST 1992
Article 3971 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael
>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Feb24.181821.19983@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Feb18.153833.10164@oracorp.com> <6199@skye.ed.ac.uk> <6594@pkmab.se>
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1992 18:18:21 GMT

In article <6594@pkmab.se> ske@pkmab.se (Kristoffer Eriksson) writes:
>In article <6199@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>>In article <1992Feb18.153833.10164@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com writes:
>>>In my opinion, Harnad was being silly. There is a common core of
>>>meaning to the word "understand", which is that lack of competence in
>>>a language implies lack of understanding. This is the case with my
>>>lack of understanding of Hungarian (or Chinese). This common core of
>>>meaning does not suffice to answer questions such as "does the Chinese
>>>Room understand?"
>>
>>In my opinion, Harned has it exactly right.  Searle's point is that
>>the Chinese Room "doesn't understand" in that same sense of understand.
>
>I fail to see how Harnad contributes anything to the question of whether
>the Chinese Room understands anything, at least not in a way that supports
>Searle. If you apply Harnad's test to the room, would the room not act like
>someone that does understand Chinese (if the room functions)? And the
>introspective aspect of the test (that you don't understand a thing of his
>Hungarian uttering), which probably is the most impressing aspect of it,
>doesn't contribute anything, since you can't introspect on someone else
>or on the room. All that is left is mostly just the usual Turing Test.

You miss the point of the Chinese Room.  The question is *not* "How
would an outside observer *tell* if the room understands?".  It is
instead "Would a person carrying out the operations which give the
*appearance* of understanding actually *have* it?"  The introspective
aspect is *crucial* to the Chinese Room.  It is *exactly* the issue under
discussion, namely, whether doing the manipulations is sufficient to
generate a *subjective* sense of understanding.  The whole point of the
Chinese Room is to show that the Turing Test is insufficient to 
determine if something truly has understanding.

- michael

>-- 
>Kristoffer Eriksson, Peridot Konsult AB, Hagagatan 6, S-703 40 Oerebro, Sweden
>Phone: +46 19-13 03 60  !  e-mail: ske@pkmab.se
>Fax:   +46 19-11 51 03  !  or ...!{uunet,mcsun}!mail.swip.net!kullmar!pkmab!ske




