From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo Wed Feb 26 12:53:44 EST 1992
Article 3936 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo
>From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Feb22.234830.17713@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Feb19.013515.26133@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1992Feb19.172251.7320@psych.toronto.edu> <438@tdatirv.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1992 23:48:30 GMT

In article <438@tdatirv.UUCP> sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>In article <1992Feb19.172251.7320@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>|The systems response one of the more intelligent ones, 
>|although Searle replied to it in 1980 in BBS, and again in 1991 in 
>|_Scientific American_. So far, I've never heard a good counter-reply.
>
>Perhaps because we have yet to be convinced that Searle's counter to
>the systems reply has any content.
>My general reaction to it is "Huh?!? that makes no sense!"
>How can I respond to something that seems to me to be nearly meaningless.

Well, it's been run by this newsgroup a bunch, but I'll try it again.

The systems reply says: it's not the man in the room that understands
but the system as a whole: the man, the room, the slips of paper, the
rule books, etc.

Searle responds: fine. Put the whole system in the man. Have him memorize
the symbols, the rules, etc., and get rid of the room. Have him walk about
like a sort of Chinese deaf-mute who can only communicate via written     
messages. Now you've got the system in the man and can discover whether the
system understands any bettter than did the man-as-part-of-the-system.
You ask him -- the system -- whether it understands Chinese.
He still replies "in his native language" that he doesn't understand a
word of Chinese.

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