From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!olivea!uunet!csar!csar.uucp!kimhock Wed Feb 26 12:54:46 EST 1992
Article 4034 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!olivea!uunet!csar!csar.uucp!kimhock
>From: kimhock@csar.uucp (Ng Kim Hock)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <kimhock.84@csar.uucp>
Date: 26 Feb 92 03:01:36 GMT
References: <1992Feb23.071810.16573@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <1992Feb24.044654.12505@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Feb25.165326.16204@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <1992Feb25.190913.7908@psych.toronto.edu>
Sender: news@csar.uucp (Usenet Administrator at CSA Research)
Organization: CSA Research, Singapore.
Lines: 42

In article <1992Feb25.190913.7908@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:

>In article <1992Feb25.165326.16204@ccu.umanitoba.ca> zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum) writes:
>>In article <1992Feb24.044654.12505@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>>>
>>I am claiming that without interpreting the symbols, the Chinese room has 
not a prayer>>in hell chance of actually conversing intelligently. 

>Well golly gosh! We agree. Problem is, computers have no way of doing such
>an interpretation (take a look at Fodor's "Tom Swift and his procedural
>grandmother" in _Representations_).

I still cling on to the opinion that part of the hard work of interpreting 
the semantics can be redirected to the party interacting with the machine. 
Consider a researcher when he represents a physical phenoma into a 
Mathematical system and then uses Mathematical rules to manipulate the 
symbols then convert the research finding by interpreting it with regards 
to the phenomena. 

Imagine that the Mathematics part is taken over by a Machine and the 
scientist interacts with the machine with the machine getting back to the 
scientist with the result. To the scientist who need to do the job of 
interpretating the result with respect to the phenomena, he can say that the 
machine is intelligent because it is able to predict a correct result which 
he himself would have taken arrived at.

The machine does not understand the physical phenomena but it is able to 
manipulate the symbolic representation in a consistent way which can be 
interpreted into something sensible by an intelligent being. 

Thus I disagree with the statement that the machine has "no chance" of 
conversing intelligently with an intelligent being. The magic is to let the 
machine specialise in symbolic manipulation and the interlocutor specialise 
in interpretation.


>-- >Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu>
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca>University 
of Toronto>---------------------
--
Louis Ng Kim Hock
kimhock%csar@uunet.uu.net


