From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ames!ncar!noao!arizona!gudeman Tue Jan 21 09:26:39 EST 1992
Article 2831 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca sci.philosophy.tech:1886 comp.ai.philosophy:2831
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ames!ncar!noao!arizona!gudeman
>From: gudeman@cs.arizona.edu (David Gudeman)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Behavior in the Bart Room
Message-ID: <11589@optima.cs.arizona.edu>
Date: 17 Jan 92 17:59:38 GMT
Sender: news@cs.arizona.edu
Followup-To: sci.philosophy.tech
Lines: 26

In article  <o78oeB2w164w@depsych.Gwinnett.COM> Richard Carlson writes:
]Over the course of the show's development, Vickie does
]learn, so that finally we have an "experienced" robot which can
]pass as a human little girl and the show ends because it has used
]up all possible "situations."  At precisely that time we can ask
]the key question: does she have "semantics" and "understanding"
]... I think that is a way to look at the question.

No, that is exactly the wrong way to look at the question.  You are
only adding peripheral effects to cloud the issue.  The fact that the
machine in question appears to the senses exactly like a human does
not change the philosophical question at all, but it does make it
harder to take an objective view.

Rather than ask about understanding, why not ask about something
verifiable?  After Vickie becomes indistinguishable from a human does
she become flesh and blood?  If a person born in France learns the
language and customs of Arizona so well that he can convince you he
was born there, does that mean that he actually was born in Arizona?
This whole idea --that something must be true just because people can
be convinced it is true-- is so obviously falacious that I don't see
how people can seriously propose it.
--
					David Gudeman
gudeman@cs.arizona.edu
noao!arizona!gudeman


