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Article 4110 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
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>From: zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Feb28.010928.13733@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
References: <1992Feb27.130232.11124@oracorp.com> <1992Feb27.222501.1716@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1992 01:09:28 GMT
Lines: 39

In article <1992Feb27.222501.1716@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>In article <1992Feb27.130232.11124@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com writes:
>
>Harnad was not offering an explanation.  He was merely pointing out that
>in some cases it's just *obvious* that there isn't understanding.
>
I fail to see how this proves that the Chinese room does not understand?
It might prove that it does not understand Hungarian though ;-)

>>I already knew that I didn't understand Hungarian (or Chinese, or
>>Finnish, etc.) However, it is not obvious how to generalize from my
>>subjective experience to something objective. And an objective
>>definition is needed in order to say under what circumstances
>>*another* being can be said to understand something.
>
>But it is *not* necessary for the Chinese Room, since what we are interested
>in is whether *you* would understand Chinese in that instance.  The key
>point is to put yourself in the position of the man in the Room.  This
>avoids the whole problem of "objective" definitions of understanding.  Do
>you *really* think that you *would* understand Chinese in the CR case?
>
The question is not "Whether you would understand Chinese in the
Chinese room", but rather, "Would the system that you are producing
understand Chinese?"
NOTE: YOU <> SYSTEM.
So the answer is that you would NOT understand Chinese, but the
Chinese room does understand!!!
By the way, I have Searles argument here with me, unlike the AI side
*he* seems to be doing a bunch of arm waving, by insisting that
since something seems 'preposterous' it is impossible, gee I guess
that Quantum Mechanics is just not possible then. :-)
>- michael


-- 
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*   AZ    -- zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca                            *
*     " The first hundred years are the hardest! " - W. Mizner  *
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