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Article 3090 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: lehman_ds@lrc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Table-lookup Chinese speaker
Message-ID: <1992Jan23.110328.147@lrc.edu>
Date: 23 Jan 92 16:03:27 GMT
References: <1992Jan20.182835.5307@spss.com> <1992Jan21.191924.18205@aisb.ed.ac.uk> <1992Jan21.182524.7880@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Jan22.161342.17781@cs.yale.edu>
Organization: Lenoir-Rhyne College, Hickory, NC
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In article <1992Jan22.161342.17781@cs.yale.edu>, mcdermott-drew@CS.YALE.EDU (Drew McDermott) writes:
> I can't pass up a chance to agree with Mikhail Zeleny
> 
>   In article <1992Jan21.182524.7880@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@widder.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>   >I can't understand how this thread ever managed to get so far without
>   >considering a very basic problem, that of context dependence of indexicals,
>   >including pronouns, demonstratives, anaphora, and tensed verbs.  Given this
>   >consideration, it is easy to see that the truth-value of the predicate "X
>   >is a meaningful Chinese sentence" depends not only on the sentential
>   >antecedents of X, but also on the concrete non-linguistic context of the
>   >entire discourse.  
> 
> All we have to do to defeat the table is allude to some fact that is
> true now and known to the average human, but not always true.  E.g.,
> the fact that earth is inhabitable.  Or, better yet, pick a fact that
> might be true at some times but is not true now.  Suppose we begin our
> dialogue thus:
> 
>    "Isn't it sad how all life on earth was wiped out a few years ago?"
> 
> and continue with other absurdities.  The lookup system will give
> itself away by responding with things like:
> 
>    "Perhaps we can find a way to cause life to re-evolve."
>     or
>    "Oh, well, life was overrated, in my opinion."
>     or
>    "Tell me more about life on earth."
> 
> whereas a normal person would say,
> 
>    "Are you out of your mind?"
> 
> If this example seems too ridiculous, take something of a narrower
> scope, like
> 
>    "Do you think the king of the United States will succeed in having
> his daughter succeed him?"
> 
>    or even
> 
>    "Do you have the time?"
> 
> Perhaps the thought experiment is supposed to involve having the table
> get updated every few seconds to reflect changes in the world.  If so,
> one must begin to inquire about the agency that is doing the updating,
> and what its (rather stressful) mental life might be like.
> 
> [All these points were made a few months ago, by the way, and some of
> the examples above I have stolen from the people who made them up.]
> 
>                                              -- Drew McDermott
  The problem with this is, a good program will notice such a statement
and may respond as such:"Then you are not human".  This type of thing
is decided by logic rules.  If you know that the United States has a
president and not a king, you know that statement to be ridiculous and
therefore state as such(or call the funny farm).  Things like
"Do you have the time" are language oriented.  Many people that learn
English as a second lang. have trouble with things like that.  Therefore,
thsi would neither prove or disprove machine intelligence.
     Drew Lehman
     Lehman_ds@lrc.edu


