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Article 3712 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Evidence that would falsify strong AI.
Message-ID: <6185@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 13 Feb 92 22:07:16 GMT
References: <1992Jan30.172057.7114@oracorp.com>
Sender: news@aiai.ed.ac.uk
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
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In article <1992Jan30.172057.7114@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com writes:
>Jeff Dalton writes: (Responding to Colin Garety)
>
>>>> What I find strange in all this is that anyone should find it
>>>> a mystery what "understand Chinese" means.  Can these people
>>>> really no distinguish between such things as reading a book
>>>> written in a language they know and reading one in a language
>>>> they don't? Do they really think they can't answer this
>>>> question until someone tells them what "know" means?
>>>
>>>I have little trouble figuring out the extent to which I understand
>>>Chinese. The chinese room leads to the question "How can I tell whether
>>>you understand Chinese?"
>
>>The question is: do you have some difficulty in knowing what
>>understand means?
>
>I believe that he already answered that. He knows what it means for
>Colin Garety to understand something, but he doesn't know what it
>means for you to understand something. It is quite clear from the
>endless debates on this subject that there is no agreed-upon meaning
>of what it means for someone to understand.

I don't think there's any great difficulty in understanding the
difference between such things as reading a book written in a
language one knows and reading one in a language one doesn't.
That's the kind of "understanding" that's involved in the
Chinese Room.

>You act as if your personal experience of understanding is sufficient
>to be able to successfully apply the word to others.

It's sufficient for me to see what difference is being considered.
All the noise about "what does understand really mean" looks like
just another way to avoid thinking about Searle's argument.

Moreover, since a lot of people have little trouble in rejecting
Searle's conclusion, without resolving exactly what "understand"
means, I find it hard to see why it's such a problem.

>         The generalization from a one-place predicate that I
>experience directly to a two-place predicate that I can have no direct
>experience of is extremely difficult for me. Frankly, I don't have any
>idea how to do it, short of using some functional or behavioral
>meaning to "understand", which definitely does not capture any of the
>subjective feeling of understanding.

You don't have to make the criteria for applying it to others
the _definition_.  

>> But some people will call any definition ill-defined or unclear
>> unless it directly corresponds to some test.
>
>I would say that a definition of understanding is unclear if, given a
>complete description of a system, it is not possible for you to
>explain why the system does or does not meet the definition.

In that case, you will have to wait until our knowledge is
greater before there's a definition of understanding that
you'll accept.

But that's fine with me.  I've often said that we should regard
the possibility of machine understanding as an open question
until we know more.

-- jd


