From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!csd.unb.ca!morgan.ucs.mun.ca!nstn.ns.ca!bonnie.concordia.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!zirdum Tue May 12 15:50:12 EDT 1992
Article 5535 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Systems Reply I (repost perhaps)
Message-ID: <1992May10.162915.23987@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Date: 10 May 92 16:29:15 GMT
References: <6640@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1992May5.195616.28038@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <6684@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Lines: 38

In article <6684@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
[stuff about Understanding]
>
>No I don't.  I can _conclude_ that it's not present.  Like this:
>
>   1. Computers can't understand.
>   2. Mechanims M is necessary for understanding.
>   3. Therefore computers lack M.
>
Hey, why not! Circular reasoning always works for me!
(Computers can't understand, because they can't
understand.)
	This is no argument at all.

>All I have to add is an argument whose conclusion is (1).  And that's
>exactly what Searle and others have provided.  Of course there might
>be something wrong with those arguments so that they fail to show
>(1).  If so, we can tell by looking at the arguments whose conclusion
>is (1).  It's flaws in those arguments that make them wrong (if they
>are wrong), not our incomplete knowledge of how humans work.
>
Searle has several flaws worked into his argument! BUT even
if Searle is right with (1) you must still show that
"Mechanism M" is required for understanding, otherwise
you are not saying very much (merely repeating (1)).
(Then again, Searle is wrong! So we can stop right there!)
>It seems to me that the anti-Searle side must be in pretty severe
>difficulty if instead of pointing out flaws in Searle's reasoning
>they have to try to get the other side to do all the work!
>
>-- jd


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*   AZ    -- zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca                            *
*     " The first hundred years are the hardest! " - W. Mizner  *
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