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Article 4406 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <6383@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 11 Mar 92 16:46:20 GMT
References: <1992Mar6.145636.13539@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <1992Mar6.220606.22225@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Mar10.150226.14196@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
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In article <1992Mar10.150226.14196@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:

> I've thought that we are discussing 'understanding' in a context of
> AI! If so, how I assign meaning to what *I* say is irrelevant. Even
> how you assign meaning to what *you* say is irrelevant. What is
> relevant is how we assign meaning to what other (then us) entity
> 'says' or does. In particular, if this other entity is a machine,
> trying to judge machine's performance by the standards of our own
> subjective 'feelings' is unreasonable.

But can machines assign meaning, or not?  Whether _we_ can assing
meaning to what they say is not in question.  Of course we can.

Now, if all you care about is what sort of behavior the machine
produces, find.  Tell us that all you care about is the behavior.
Why do you also want to say "and the word `understand' has to 
rbe about the stuff I'm interested in, and not the stuff you're
interested in"?  Why not just say you don't care whether machines
understand (in Searle's sense) or not?

-- jd


