From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wupost!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!aifh!bhw Tue Jan 21 09:27:23 EST 1992
Article 2913 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: bhw@aifh.ed.ac.uk (Barbara H. Webb)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Intelligence testing
Message-ID: <1992Jan20.143839.4757@aifh.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 20 Jan 92 14:38:39 GMT
References: <1992Jan14.015806.23985@oracorp.com> <5982@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1992Jan15.185342.11589@aifh.ed.ac.uk> <5993@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1992Jan16.122937.23838@aifh.ed.ac.uk> <6000@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1992Jan17.161938.20312@aifh.ed.ac.uk> <6013@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Reply-To: bhw@aifh.ed.ac.uk (Barbara H. Webb)
Organization: Dept AI, Edinburgh University, Scotland
Lines: 107

In article <6013@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>In article <1992Jan17.161938.20312@aifh.ed.ac.uk> bhw@aifh.ed.ac.uk (Barbara H. Webb) writes:

I suggested what I thought Jeff was arguing in this thread:
>>[arguing that "believing that understanding is necessary for
>>conversation" is not inconsistent with "believing Searle's Chinese Room
>>is a convincing argument against the Turing test being a valid way to
>>test for understanding" (I hope that's a fair statement of the position?)]

Jeff replied
>Unfortunately, it's not.  In particular, I have not said that those
>two beliefs, as stated above, are consistent.

Well it appears I am having trouble understanding what your point is.
I thought this thread got started because you disputed my implication
that Searle believes that conversation without 'understanding'
(intentionality) is possible. I had said that his Chinese
Room argument _requires_ that something _could_ exist that had human
behaviour but didn't have the corresponding 'mentality'. You said
that I was incorrect to say that Searle believed the behaviour was
possible without 'understanding', that in fact he could well believe 
the opposite, that the behaviour was not possible without understanding
(Belief 1). I took it as fair to say that _Searle_
believes his Chinese Room argument to be a convincing way to reject the
Turing test as a test for understanding (Belief 2).
In my statement above I was careful to avoid ascribing either belief to
you (as you have shown a tendency to resent this) and indeed I didn't
even ascribe them to Searle (to save further distraction on that point
too).
But I thought it was clear in your previous posts that you were
trying to show that it would not be inconsistent for you (or Searle)
to hold both beliefs (even if you were only holding them hypothetically).
If this was not what you were talking about I apologise, and look
forward to your clarification of what you were talking about. Do you
then agree that Searle's argument against the Turing Test _does_ require
that something could behave intelligently yet lack intelligence?

>Moreover, the complaint about the Turing Test is that using it
>to show that "the system understands" is begging the question,
>and not that the TT doesn't work.  It might turn out to work.
>But we need more than that to show "the system understands".

Again, I must have been mistaken in thinking we were discussing
_Searle's_ complaint about the Turing Test, which, embodied in his
Chinese Room example, is an argument that _no_ program would be sufficient
for mentality no matter how well it could produce intelligent behaviour
in a computer. 

>Well, you've taken what I actually said and turned it into a much
>stronger claim: "would consider this a far more logical course".
>Indeed, you keep doing that sort of thing, as if anyone who said
>what I said must also believe something stronger.

>_If_ I were sufficiently convonced by Searle's argument, then
>I would consider it more logical to conclude that the computer
>didn't understand than to believe that complex processing could
>cause understanding.

So, _are_ you convinced by Searle's argument? When you first started
posting on this topic you certainly gave the impression that you thought
Searle's argument was an important point (if not the only point) against
the Turing test. I don't see much purpose in arguing against someone who
counters my arguments with "well, you might have rebutted that point, but I
only proposed it hypothetically so you haven't succeeded in attacking my
_real_ position".   

You said:
>>>The arguements for acepting the TT right now do look rather like
>>>residual operationalism and behaviorism.  They often involve saying
>>>(or implying) that there's no way to test for "real understanding",
>>>that the question of "real understanding" is meaningless or
>>>unscientific, and so on.

I attempted to explain (in admittedly very vague terms) what
operationalism is about, and why accepting the Turing test in no way
requires adopting such a radical philosophical position:
>>In other words, arguments for the Turing Test do not involve saying or
>>implying that there is nothing more to "understanding" than the
>>behaviour.

And you replied:
>Maybe so, but what I said was that they often involve saying (or
>implying) that there's no way to test for "real understanding", that
>the question of "real understanding" is meaningless or unscientific,
>and so on. 

A bit repetitive but I take it you have then accepted my original point
that the Turing Test is not _inherently_ behaviourist, and that to
dismiss the _test_ as "behaviourist and operationalist" is a mistake.
Rather, _some_ supporters of the test are being behaviourist when they
argue "it is valid because the behaviour _is_ the intelligence", and you
object to such arguments. Is this a fair statement of your position?
(Why do I get the feeling you are going to say "no"?) If it is, which
particular supporters of the Turing test do you have in mind as people
who suscribe to this argument to support it?

BW

P.S. You asked:
>You said operationalism was part of behaviorism.  Is this
>cognitivism also part of behaviorism?

Are you joking? If you don't know enough about behaviourism to know that
'cognitivism'  (considering cognitive and mental processes
as valid causal factors that must be considered in explaining human
psychology) was the rejection of it, then you really shouldn't be using
the term.


