From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!aiai!jeff Thu Jan 16 17:19:33 EST 1992
Article 2628 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Causes and Reasons
Message-ID: <5941@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 10 Jan 92 17:48:00 GMT
References: <1991Dec24.014716.6901@husc3.harvard.edu> <5918@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1992Jan10.011118.26218@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <16386@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 26

In article <16386@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>In article <1992Jan9.181611.834@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com writes:
>>Jeff Dalton writes:
>
>>> If Searle is right that without sensory input there is no
>>> understanding in computers by virtue of their running the right
>>> program, why would adding sensors cause understanding to appear?
>
>>If Searle claims that what is missing in a syntactic simulation of a
>>mind is that there is no causal connection between the words being
>>manipulated and the real-world objects to which the words refer, then
>>the use of sensors changes things significantly. 

But that isn't what he's claims.  He discusses the case of adding
manipulators, sensors, and so forth, and argues that it doesn't
help.  It's interesting, BTW, that Chris Malcolm and Harnad agree
that merely adding sensors isn't enough.  Their position seems
much more plausible to me than does the simple robot reply.

>Just as a lot of the confusion in pro- and anti-AI arguments comes from
>differing perceptions of how complex and subtle can be the behaviour of
>programmed computers, 

I'm not concinced of this.  Sure, some people may be confused on
these grounds, but I don't think it's that big a factor in, say,
this net discussion.


