From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!pindor Tue Jan 28 12:18:39 EST 1992
Article 3212 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
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>From: pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Cargo Cult Science
Message-ID: <1992Jan28.155508.12070@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCS Public Access
References: <16814@castle.ed.ac.uk> <1992Jan22.181811.23990@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <16979@castle.ed.ac.uk> <1992Jan23.205220.23402@aisb.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1992 15:55:08 GMT

In article <1992Jan23.205220.23402@aisb.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>
>I've said that the demands for definitions are a waste of time.
>And they are.  We have to remember that this is a philosophy
>group, not maths or physics.  And the demand to define is very
>often used just as a way to shift the burden of proof, especially
>since it's clear that some of the demands for definitions of,
>say, "understanding", won't be satisfied by anything less than an
>operational test.
>
What is so unpalatable about 'operational test'? I'd say that if a definition
has not operational content, then it is useless.

>What I find strange in all this is that anyone should find it
>a mystery what "understand Chinese" means.  Can these people
>really no distinguish between such things as reading a book
>written in a language they know and reading one in a language
>they don't?  Do they really think they can't answer this
>question until someone tells them what "know" means?
>
Don't you think that it might be possible for someone knowing the language
(Chinese, English or whatever) to read a story, like the one about hamburgers,
and still be unable to answer the question whether the hamburger was
consumed or not? You might say the person was very dim or absent-minded, fine,
but still understanding the language and the content of the story are not
the same thing. Did it happen to you to read a story and then after a while 
(may be after talking about it with someone else) decide that really you did 
not understand the story first time. It was not about Smith going through his
daily routine, but about loneliness (or similiar, you hopefully understand
:-| what I mean) What I am driving at is that understanding is not such a black
and white thing as you seem to be implying and different people may mean
different things when they talk about it and even one person may have different
meanings in mind in different contexts. Hence do avoid talking _at each other_
(as opposed to _to each other_) we should perhaps attempt to make the term less
ambigouos. Don't you think that large part of controversy about whether CR
understands or not is caused by different notions of what understanding is?
 


-- 
Andrzej Pindor
University of Toronto
Computing Services
pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca


