From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Wed Feb 26 12:54:05 EST 1992
Article 3970 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!michael
>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Feb24.181310.19485@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Feb22.181122.12088@oracorp.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1992 18:13:10 GMT

In article <1992Feb22.181122.12088@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com writes:
>Christopher Green writes:
>
>>>> When Steven Harnad came to the University of Toronto to give a
>>>> colloquium on *his* solution to the Chinese Room, he noted, "Everyone
>>>> thinks that defining understanding is so difficult.  Well, here..." at
>>>> which point he spouted something entirely incomprehensible in a
>>>> non-English language.  "There," he said, "that was Hungarian.  Did you
>>>> understand that?  If not, then you know what understanding
>>>> involves..."
>
>> The question is "Does the Chinese room understand *Chinese*?" Insofar
>> as I understand, this is the ONLY question relevant to the Chinese
>> room. It is the aritificial intelligentsia who have tried to make the
>> question obscure.  Searle's question was very straightforward, and
>> Harnad's explication is dead on.
>
>Well, I disagree on almost every point. I don't think Searle's
>question was straightforward, I don't think Harnad's explication
>helped at all, and I don't think AI types are trying to make the word
>"understanding" obscure; quite the opposite.
>
>Harnad's little bit of rhetoric was much like (some of) Searle's
>arguments; the purpose is not to clarify anything, but to ridicule
>opponents.

I tell you what, Daryl.  Convert this article in rot-13 (hit CTRL-X) and
*then* try to read it.  If you *can't*, then you know all you need to know
about *not* understanding for the Chinese Room argument to work.

- michael
 




