From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo Tue Jun  9 10:06:34 EDT 1992
Article 6051 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: Grounding: Virtual vs. Real
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992May27.042826.28187@Princeton.EDU> <BILL.92May27113824@cortex.nsma.arizona.edu> <BILL.92May27224605@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu>
Message-ID: <Bp8Fz6.8yu@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1992 19:11:29 GMT

In article <BILL.92May27224605@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu> bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs) writes:
>
>The reason Searle's argument is so appealing is that it is obvious
>that the Chinese Room does not include a Cartesian Theater.  This
>makes it clash with our deeply rooted image of what a mind is like.  

First of all, you've given us no reason (and neither has Dennett as far
as I can tell) to believe that the "Cartesian theatre" except in its
crudest form, is actually false.  It's just supposed to be accepted that
since the crude form is ludicrous, all forms must be. This is just argument
by humiliatingly simplistic instantiation, which I take to be a fallacy.
Second, Searle's argument is not "appealing" because there is no "Cartesian 
theatre" in the head. It is "appealing" (what kind of assessment of an argument
is "appealing", anyway) becuase he lays out premises and a deductively
valid conclusion. If you disagree with him, you're committed to finding 
flaw with one of the premises (which many have) or with the argument form 
(which few have done, because the argument form is so basic).  
>
What is so "appealing" about *YOUR* argument, is that you appeal to an
obviously wrong view of the mind (wrong, presumably, in that it leads
to an infinite regress of homunculi) and then attribute it to Searle.
But Searle never advocates the "Cartesian theatre", and even if he did,
the Chinese room argument can function without such an assumption.



-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
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