From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tdatirv!sarima Thu Jan 16 17:21:51 EST 1992
Article 2730 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Penrose on Man vs. Machine
Message-ID: <375@tdatirv.UUCP>
Date: 14 Jan 92 19:42:22 GMT
References: <1992Jan9.211337.14379@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <5939@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1992Jan13.230532.26592@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <1992Jan14.040820.26868@unixg.ubc.ca>
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Followup-To: comp.ai.philosophy
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In article <1992Jan14.040820.26868@unixg.ubc.ca> ramsay@unixg.ubc.ca (Keith Ramsay) writes:
|Getting a suitable definition is something which could, at best, only
|occur toward the *end* of a discussion such as this; once one has a
|definition, it would stop being a philosophical problem. So long as
|we're still philosophizing, we should expect to be dealing with terms
|which don't have operational definitions yet.

Quite true.  I see the call for a definition as a way of trying to resolve
the issue.  Right now we are talking in circles at least in part because
we do not have an adequate definition of such terms as 'understanding'.

If we had:
	1 - a definition of understanding that gave an *objective* criterion
	    for determining if some entity had understanding,

and	2 - a reasonable model for how the CR might go about acomplishing its
	    amazing feat of Chinese dialog,

then we could determine if indeed the CR so constituted did indeed understand
Chinese.

Until then the question is undecidable in principle, since the two principle
components of the question are ill-defined.   I believe that language
performance is such a difficult problem that only 'true understanding' is
capable of solving it, Searle disagrees.   Who is right?  I have no idea,
and neither does anyone else - it is all opinion at this point.

-- 
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uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)



