From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!psinntp!scylla!daryl Fri Jan 31 10:27:17 EST 1992
Article 3295 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
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>From: daryl@oracorp.com
Subject: Re: Intelligence Testing
Message-ID: <1992Jan30.141236.18589@oracorp.com>
Organization: ORA Corporation
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1992 14:12:36 GMT

Jeff Dalton writes: (in response to Andrzej Pindor)

>> Since you do not know how understanding arises in the human brain
>> (the only system you are convinced has an ability to understand), how
>> are going to tell, by looking inside the machine, whether it
>> understands or not?

> You may recall that I said we don't yet know enough.

and also

> In my view, whether or not it "understands" will depend on how it
> works.  If it works like humans do, in the relevant ways, (which
> I, but not Searle, think may be functional rather than physical),
> then I'd say it understands.  If it works in some different way,
> it would depend on just what that way was.  If it's table lookup,
> for instance, I'd say it doesn't understand.

Okay, Jeff, so don't go on about "we don't yet know enough". If you
know eough to say definitely that the table lookup program doesn't
understand, then you know enough for the purposes of this discussion.
If you can explain why you are certain that the table lookup program
is not capable of understanding, then we will at least made some
progress.

So don't worry about some hypothetical machine whose mechanism we
haven't even thought of yet---of course you don't know enough about
such a machine. Let's talk about why the table lookup program doesn't
understand. You should get a lot of help, since just about all the
principle players of the pro/anti Searle discussion---you, Zeleny,
Chalmers, McDermott, etc---seem to agree on this one.

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY



