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From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Searle's Chinese Room refuted by Society of Mind
Message-ID: <DAn4ov.CzJ@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <YLIKOSKI.95Jun6203133@gamma.hut.fi> <1995Jun20.222256.15150@galileo.cc.rochester.edu> <DAJG3H.MEt@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <1995Jun22.042831.18862@galileo.cc.rochester.edu>
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 19:26:55 GMT
Lines: 112

In article <1995Jun22.042831.18862@galileo.cc.rochester.edu>,
Greg Stevens <stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu> wrote:
>pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>
>>...On the other hand a person who has a lot of experience with cats can be 
>>legitimately said to understand the word "cat" better than a person who has
>>very little experience with these animals, don't you think?
>>You are taking my words from one context and indicating their invalidity in 
>>another. I find it very puzzling. 
>
>I am very sorry if I puzzle you, and please believe that I am not "trying"
>to misinterpret your words.  However, in the measurement of different
>people's experiences there are two kinds: qualitative and quantitative.
>But neither seems a good metric for determining whether one's experience
>qualifies as leading to "better" knowledge than another.  Would you 
>mean to say that mere frequency of contact implies understanding, as you
>seem to imply above?  If so, someone how has been raped twice has a
>better understanding of "sex" than a person who just had the experience
>of losing virginity to a loved companion.  Does this seem right?  Or
>is it *just* different, despite the fact that one has greater frequency?
>Take our eunuch from the previous example:
>
>>>The same is true of the eunuch and sex.  Both a eunuch and a prostitute
>>>"understand" sex, but that understanding take a different form with
>>>each of them.  It is disingenuous to say that the eunuch doesn't
>>>"really" understand sex just because of a difference, just as it would
>>>be disingenuous to say that a person doesn't "really" understand cats just
>>>because they don't cuddle with them at night.
>
>These were my words a while ago.  I add to that -- if the eunuch sat and
>watched people having sex CONSTANTLY, wouldn't that give the eunuch more
>exposure to and therefore better understanding of sex than your average
>couple in their first year of marriage?  This follows from a purely
>quantitative argument.
>
>But if it is qualitative, then on what do you base you decision of what
>KIND of experience is 'better'?  If engaging in sex gives you better
>understanding than watching sex, then what do you have to engage in to give
>you "better" understanding of a cat than watching it?  If two people
>have engaged in sex the same number of times, one with a long-time
>companion and the other each time with a different person, is one
>better or are they merely different?  
>
>These are the questions that seem to be raised and unanswered when you
>say "better understanding."
>
Even though all your objections seem to be valid, they are rendered irrelevant
by the fact that we (I mean a society in general) does recognize that there is
value in experience, that gathering more experience helps people (even though
not always) to understand things better. Also note that education is not only 
learning about new things, it is also about learning to understand things 
_better_.

>And further, if you insist on a functional view of "better understanding" --
>i.e. better able to function in relation to the thing, there seems still
>to be no justification for ever making a judgement.  As I have said in
>another post, presumably a eunuch has as good an understanding of sex
>as the eunuch will ever need, being in the position the eunuch is in.
>Similarly, someone who never encounters cats works just as functionally
>in relation to cats as a person who always encounters cats -- because
>they simply aren't there (similar to the phenomenon that some of the
>most unlikely states have the best voting histories on civil rights
>issues -- not because they have the same views as those fighting racism,
>but because there are so few African-Americans in the state that the
>issue never comes up).  Or do you mean a person being able to function
>in relation to the object in a VARIETY of contexts ("If he was
>around cats, he'd know what to do...")? 
>
I am really again puzzled by these examples - they are orthogonal to 
the problem. Of course, if you do not deal with cats, then what is your 
understanding of them is irrelevant. 

>This last suggestion seems functional to me.  But it is very unclear,
>and all of these issues hover over any conversation where there is a
>judgement such as "better understanding."  On the one hand, it is touchy
>merely because it can raise emotion issues when evaluative terms are
>used ("Well, *I* understand love better than *you* do because *I*'ve had
>more boyfriends than you!" -- a clearly fallacious conclusion).  But
>this touchiness is amplified because the term itself is compeltely
>unclear.  I merely ask you to justify some metric for determining
>wht constitutes "better" and "worse" understanding.  Is it
>quantitative, qualitative, or both?  If qualitative or both, WHAT
>determines which qualities are better?  For a term like "cat" the
>qualities needed are probably different than for a term like
>"sex" -- why, and what is the basis for that distinction?
>
You give yourself an answer to what metric is being used for determining
what constitutes "worse" or "better" understanding of something when you
ask another person for help in dealing with a problem, like asking your
doctor "why do I have these headaches?", or your car mechanic "why does 
transmission oil in my car smell so funny?" etc. etc. Don't tell me that you
are just curios what other opinions about these things might be, or will you?

>These things I wish to understand.  As long as I do not, I think,
>the eunuch understands sex *differently* from the prostitute, no
>better, no worse.
>
I am sure that a moment of reflection on what I have said above will make you
understand. It may also be helpful to consider that there is a good reason
(and not merely a whim) why for many jobs people are asked to prove that 
they have specific qualifications.

>Greg Stevens
>stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu
>
Andrzej

-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
