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Article 2882 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: dirish@math.utah.edu (Dudley Irish)
Subject: Re: Searle and the Chinese Room
Sender: news@math.utah.edu
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 1992 22:53:18 GMT
References: <DIRISH.92Jan14103326@jeeves.math.utah.edu>
	<1992Jan14.202806.29986@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
	<DIRISH.92Jan16121959@jeeves.math.utah.edu>
	<1992Jan16.211515.3234@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
In-Reply-To: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu's message of Thu, 16 Jan 92 21: 15:15 GMT
Organization: Department of Mathematics, University of Utah
Message-ID: <DIRISH.92Jan18155318@jeeves.math.utah.edu>

Oh, this natural language stuff is tricky.

>In article <1992Jan16.211515.3234@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
>chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:

>>In article <DIRISH.92Jan16121959@jeeves.math.utah.edu>
>>dirish@math.utah.edu (Dudley Irish) writes:

>>The marks on the paper are not the recipe.  They are a representation
>>of the recipe.

>>See above.  The recipe is meaningless (has no semantic content) if it
>>is not interpreted.  It is improper (a category mistake) to speak of
>>the recipe as being un-interpreted.

>If I'm cooking a casserole from a page I've torn out of Julia Childs'
>cookbook, and then drop the page on the floor and tread on it, I can
>say "I trod on the recipe" without committing any category mistake at
>all (I don't say "Oh dear!  I trod on a representation of the recipe").
>At best, the term "recipe" is ambiguous between the object doing
>the representing and the represented object.  As I've made clear,
>I'm talking about the object doing the representing.

If we are standing around the kitchen, drinking wine and doing bad
imitations of Julia Childs then you are correct.  I am not going to
point out to you that you didn't trod on the recipe and that instead
you trod on a page from a magazine (or more properly a leaf).
However, if you are going to attempt to discuss issues pertaining to
Philosophy of Language and Philosophy of Mind, then, yes David, I am
going to point out to you that you have made a mistake.

There is no ambiguity.  We all (well most of us) know exactly what the
difference between the recipe and the representation of the recipe is.
What I am asking, nay, insisting is that we keep that difference
straight.

>>We like to think of our programming languages as formal languages, but
>>I agree, we are mistaken when we do.

>Fine.  Then we are agreed on the central claim, which is that there
>isn't a relevant difference between programs and recipes in this respect.
>The rest is terminological.

>>If we formalized the recipes into a formal language then they would
>>not be written in a natural language, they would be written in a
>>formal language.  Again, I ask, could we please keep strait the
>>difference between a formal language and a natural language.

>Fine, but nothing in my argument depends on the recipes being written
>in a natural language.  If they're written in a formal language, the
>argument goes through equally well.  Hence the difference between
>natural and formal languages is irrelevant here.

This is precisely the problem with 99% of the discussion on this
point.  The difference between natural and formal languages is not
irrelevant.  Again, I must insist that we keep the difference
straight.

Dudley Irish


--
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dirish@ced.utah.edu, Center for Engineering Design, University of Utah

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