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Article 4050 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: gindrup@math.okstate.edu (Eric `'d'kidd' G..)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Feb26.223005.18173@math.okstate.edu>
Date: 26 Feb 92 22:30:05 GMT
References: <1992Feb23.071810.16573@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <1992Feb24.044654.12505@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Feb24.083303.20762@u.washington.edu> <1992Feb24.100036.9114@husc3.harvard.edu>
Organization: Oklahoma State University, Math Department
Lines: 57

In article <1992Feb24.100036.9114@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>In article <1992Feb24.083303.20762@u.washington.edu> 
>forbis@milton.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis) writes:
>>In article <1992Feb24.044654.12505@psych.toronto.edu> 
>>
>>Likewise, if an individual said in English "I do not understand Chinese" when
>>asked orally in English if she understood Chinese but wrote "Yes, I understand
>>Chinese" when viewing the question in Chinese, would you say the person does
>>not understand Chinese?
>
>How do you know he is telling the truth in either case?
>
>>--gary forbis@u.washington.edu
>
>: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
>: email zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu or zeleny@HUMA1.BITNET            :

Truth is a null-valued concept to introduce in the middle of the stream.
The question is, does the formal system encoded in the brain of the man claim
to understand (1) spoken English (2) spoken Chinese (3) written Chinese.
In fact, he claims : (1) yes (2) no (3) yes.  However, either the formal
written Chinese system claims to understand Chinese or the man does.  In the
second case the arguing comes to a standstill (He claims to know Chinese and
has managed to demonstrate the fact by translating to internal symbols (if
necessary), making appropriate manipulations, and producing symbols which
meaningfully answer the question through understanding the process.)  So, we
must take the more interesting argument that the formal system and not the
man claims to understand Chinese.
One would then be led to the conclusion that the operations of the man and
the Chinese system are in some fundamental way intrinsically separated.  In
effect, all of the man's pattern recognition "software" must be suspended
while he is working on Chinese.  If this were not the case, then the man
would eventually introduce shortcuts into the process of disassembling,
processing, and assembling Chinese characters.  E.g. recognizing certain
patterns or strings in the input character string and immediately translating
to the output without going through the formal system explicitly.
But, here's my question.
If I told the formal system (either room form or memorized form) that my
name is "Xiao Hong", how would the room remember this information?  How
about the man?  Hmmm...

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We are each of us dying and being born.  Our memories are just collective
fictions written by those we have been.  (People who probably wouldn't like
what they've become.)  We live in our times as they lived in theirs.  So
do not take their oaths and vows to be your own; for they are people quite
different from you with different perspective and goals.  In truth we are
composed not of our aspirations but of our perspirations.
Rage against the dying of the light.
.nr etah I

-'d' Kidd / Eric Idle / ESG / Eric Gindrup
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`gindrup@hardy.math.okstate.edu     (preferred)	      If at first you don't `
`						succeed, deficit spend.  It `
`uucp 'a.cs.okstate.edu!/dev/null'  (flames)	works for the Federal Gov't.`
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