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Article 2530 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.logic
Subject: Re: Penrose on Man vs. Machine
Message-ID: <1992Jan7.162542.7202@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 7 Jan 92 21:25:40 GMT
References: <1992Jan7.031553.24886@oracorp.com> <1992Jan7.105117.7193@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Jan7.191853.17310@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Organization: Dept. of Math, Harvard Univ.
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In article <1992Jan7.191853.17310@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> 
pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:

>In article <1992Jan7.105117.7193@husc3.harvard.edu> 
>zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

MZ:
>> [...] Indeed, it is arguably true that all understanding is fundamentally
>>non-algorithmic; however, in view of our past disagreements, I shan't
>>repeat an argument to that effect, limiting myself to the claim that it is
>>intuitively obvious to me that I am capable of understanding.

>>: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :

AP:
>It would save a lot of time and bandwidth if we first decided what is meant by
>'undertanding'. Is there an unambiguous definition of the notion of
>'understanding'? If there isn't one ('undertanding' being an intuitive
>notion) then most of the discussions here are pointless, since different
>people have different inutitions and everyone aruges about his own private 
>ideas pretending they all talk about the same thing. 

Understanding is a faculty of grasping with the mind the concept or
proposition that constitutes the cognitive content of a singular term or a
declarative sentence, in virtue of expressing which the term or sentence
can be said to be meaningful, and may denote a certain object or a
truth-value.  This definition, like all other attemps at real definition,
is theory-laden, and should be handled with great care.

AP:
>In my opinion much of the Chinese Room discussion falls into this category.
>Listening to some of the pro-Searle arguments one gets an impression that
>the word 'understanding' could not be applied to an abstract branch of math,
>say abstract group theory.  An attempt by someone here to feed CR with 
>elementary arithmetics got derailed by demands that CR 'understands' that
>'2' may mean 'two apples' or 'two oranges' or something like this. However,
>if we feed CR with basics of abstract group theory and then proceed to ask it
>questions which it answers correctly, how will it's 'understanding' differ
>from that of a human being?

I eagerly await the day when some kindly soul would proffer an argument,
rather than yet another opinion.  Alas, I see no evidence of an argument in
the above.  As for the last question, I trust that you understand the
concept of a finite order group.  On the other hand, no Turing machine
could duplicate that feat, given that the second-order concept of finitude
is inherently beyond the ken of a recursive mind.  Case closed.

>-- 
>Andrzej Pindor
>University of Toronto
>Computing Services
>pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca


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: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
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