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Article 2653 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Understanding and the Systems Reply
Message-ID: <1992Jan11.001054.5936@spss.com>
Date: Sat, 11 Jan 1992 00:10:54 GMT
References: <4dPS4Q_00WBNA2Vtof@andrew.cmu.edu>
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In article <4dPS4Q_00WBNA2Vtof@andrew.cmu.edu> Franklin Boyle <fb0m+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>Well, isn't this the crux of the matter?  Why he can't relate the
>two is why Searle claims formal symbol manipulation is not adequate
>for understanding. How do you program a computer so that it can 
>understand Chinese (or English) the way we understand English?  
>Remember, sense-impressions, smells, etc. still must be 
>encoded symbolically (even if they are originally obtained
>via sensors) and so their representations are *physically* manipulated 
>in the computer the same way symbols for words of a language are.  What
>intrinsic referential capacity could any of these symbols possibly have 
>if *we* determine the encoding?

Some problems with this objection:

1. "We" might not be doing the encoding.  The allegedly understanding
program might determine its own encodings of sensory data.  For instance,
it might include neural nets which are not directly programmed by humans.

2. How is the referential capacity of a symbol impaired by who chose its
encoding scheme?  If ANY referential scheme is valid, then it can be used
by the Chinese Room, no matter who came up with it.  If NO such scheme is
possible, then who programmed it matters even less.

3. How do humans refer to things?  Why does your objection not apply to
whatever referential capacity brains have?


