From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!zirdum Wed Feb 26 12:54:31 EST 1992
Article 4008 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!zirdum
>From: zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Feb25.165326.16204@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Date: 25 Feb 92 16:53:26 GMT
References: <1992Feb22.234830.17713@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Feb23.071810.16573@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <1992Feb24.044654.12505@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Lines: 49

In article <1992Feb24.044654.12505@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>In article <1992Feb23.071810.16573@ccu.umanitoba.ca> zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum) writes:
>>>You ask him -- the system -- whether it understands Chinese.
>>>He still replies "in his native language" that he doesn't understand a
>>>word of Chinese.
>>>
>>
>>It seems to me that the man cannot respond in any way but to say "Yes I understand
>>Chinese!" He has all the requirements, He can do anything that a native Chinese
>>speaker can. There is no need for him to assume that native Chinese speakers do
>>it in a different way. In short, I have serious doubts that someone can memorize
>>rules for interacting with Chinese speakers and still not understand.
>
>I think you've lost track of the fact that all the rules the man is using
>are purely syntactic. All the Chinese symbols he uses are still purely
>formal and uninterpreted. Thus, what he is missing is their *meaning*.
>And without their meaning, surely he cannot be said to understand them.
>
>-- 
>Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu

I think that you missed my point. What is it that you get from me when I write to you
on the Net, is it syntax or semantics? Where exactly in your mind is this
syntax converted to semantics?

I am claiming that without interpreting the symbols, the Chinese room has not a prayer
in hell chance of actually conversing intelligently. The system that is now a
part of our man must (if I am right) have semantic understanding to converse
in Chinese, it can not be done by just manipulating symbols without reference
to previous goings-on. If you are to ask the Chinese room something about
what the man was doing recently (such as what he ate for breakfast) it
must be able to answer intelligently. Now where did the semantics come from?

If the Chinese room in the man answers, and the man still claims that he
does not understand chinese ...
Let me offer an example of such a happening, as someone recently stated
there have been experiments with split brain people. If you told them
to look at a screen and hold an fork in their hand. Now you ask them
what they are holding, they would answer "I don't know", but if you
ask them to write it down they would write "fork". In this case, does
the man understand what he is holding or not?
I personally would be inclined to say that the man understands, while a
part of him does not!

In any case I do not think that a system could reproduce intelligent 
behaviour by "just manipulating symbols - with no relation to the 
external world (that we call semantics)"

-- AZ --


