From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo Tue Mar 24 09:54:59 EST 1992
Article 4400 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: The Systems Reply I
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Mar6.185926.18497@oracorp.com> <1992Mar9.171606.6886@psych.toronto.edu> <6374@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <1992Mar11.201637.21875@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1992 20:16:37 GMT

In article <6374@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

>BTW, I still haven't seen a satisfactory answer to the point that
>the Room manipulates meaningless symbols (ie, treats them syntactically)
>without any way to attach meaning to them.  But maybe I've just
>missed it in all the noise.
>
Ah, once again I leap into the breach! Jeff, you're absolutely right. IF
you're phraseology convinces the hordes that have been unconvinced by me,
then terrific. It is very straightforward. The symbols (by definition!)
have no meanings. That's what makes the Chinese room qualify as a Turing
Machine. It doesn't matter how many symbols you have. It doesn't matter how 
complex the rules are. IT doesn't matter if you stick the machine inside
a robot. It doesn't matter what else you do. If the symbols acquire 
explicit referents (which, BTW, is only PART of meaning), you no longer
have a Turing machine. Now, keeping that constraint in mind, consider
predicate calculus. It's pretty complex. It's infinite, in fact. No 
matter how you execute it, however, the symbols have no meanings until
you explicitly give them some. Dave Chalmers says that predicate calculus
isn't complex enough; that maybe if you get even more complex understanding,
consciousness, and maybe even qualia result. Okay. Let's try 15th order
modal predicate calculus -- a formal language even MORE complex
than any ordinary language I can think of (proof: you can derive things
in 15th order modal predicate calculus that you can't derive in, say,
English, or Chinese). The terms STILL have no meaning. In fact, they're
defined (just as in any Turing machine) not to have meaning. If there's
no meaning, then there can't be understanding. Whew.


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