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Article 2702 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: hooker@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu (Robert Hooker)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Ignore Searle and be happier
Message-ID: <1992Jan14.174312.22597@ils.nwu.edu>
Date: 14 Jan 92 17:43:12 GMT
References: <2211@ucl-cs.uucp>
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In article <2211@ucl-cs.uucp> G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly) writes:
> No wonder Searle invented the Chinese Room, where natural language
> translation is the key action. That seems to be the only action that
> matters. The answers are created inside the room by a human, who we
> assume has an average capacity for thought. He elides any other
> "intelligent" action, in the room as a whole, that is not carried out
> by the person inside the room.

The persons intelligence is not at all important.  Searle is building an 
analogy for translator programs that were being created at the time.  Many 
persons claimed that these systems which took code input and created 
"intelligent" code output "understood " language.

So the china room only has a person in it who can understand a language to 
point out that the systems does not understand anything.

You could train a ape or a dolpin to do the job of the human or easily 
make a computer program, so what the point is that the room does not 
understand Chinesse.

That is programs to manipulate code whic pass the turing test do not 
understand what they are doing (according to Searle)


