From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Mon Mar  9 18:35:55 EST 1992
Article 4326 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael
>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Mar5.001144.28065@beaver.cs.washington.edu> <1992Mar5.203720.4209@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Mar6.012217.25722@news.media.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <1992Mar6.214616.18384@psych.toronto.edu>
Keywords: meaning, understanding
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1992 21:46:16 GMT

In article <1992Mar6.012217.25722@news.media.mit.edu> minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>
>========  Understanding Understanding =============
>
>It seems to me that this discussion has become somewhat unproductive
>because of non-agreement about the meaning of "understanding". Some
>discussants assume that whatever "to understand" means, it is an
>absolute, all or none attribute of a system.  Others say that it must
>depend on something called "semantics" but aren't very clear about
>what a semantic might be.

[rest of the posting deleted.  See the original for the argument(?)]

There seems to be a common misconception that the Chinese Room rests
on some esoteric notion of "understanding," or that we have to analyze
that concept to see what is going on in that situation.  As I (and others)
have repeatedly argued, this is entirely wrong.  The confusion seems to
arise because people want to determine how *from the outside* we would
know if the CR understands.  This is the wrong approach.  The whole point
of the CR argument is that *you* can actually carry out the computational
operations *yourself*.  The question is, If you do this, will you understand
Chinese in the way you understand other languages?  The answer is clearly "no."
No special analysis of understanding is required.

I agree that the situation is sticky if we want an "objective" definition of
understanding.  I agree that the concept is complex and not transparent.  But
for the purposes of the original CR example, all of this makes *no* difference.


- michael



