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Article 4053 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: fred@mole.cis.ufl.edu (Fred Buhl)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Keywords: Searle Chinese Dead Horses
Message-ID: <34375@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Date: 25 Feb 92 21:21:02 GMT
References: <438@tdatirv.UUCP> <1992Feb22.234830.17713@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Feb23.071810.16573@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
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In article <1992Feb23.071810.16573@ccu.umanitoba.ca> zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca
(Antun Zirdum) writes: 


>> [restatement of the "internalize the whole system" CR reply omitted]

>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.

A few points: 

1) Would the man even _know_ that the rules involved were for the Chinese
language? (unless, of course, someone informed him of this fact, in his native
language.) If the symbols are "meaningless squiggles" to him, he might not be
able to differentiate them from Korean (which is similar) or any other sets of
squiggles.  He could say, "I don't know if I know CHINESE, but I do know a lot
of neato squiggles".

2) If you claim he understands Chinese, ask him in his native language "What's
the Chinese symbol for 'dog'?".  He wouldn't be able to answer.  Clearly, a
person who "understands" two languages (his native one and Chinese) and is
unable to translate a _single_ _word_ from one language to another has a very
bizarre type of "understanding".

Gads.  It's the Gedankenexperiment that would not die!

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Fred Buhl, Grad Student        A proud member of the Union of
UF Computer Science Dept.      Unconcerned Scientists.       
fred@reef.cis.ufl.edu          "Ants are smart.  _Really_ smart." 
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