From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Mon Mar  9 18:33:24 EST 1992
Article 4094 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: <1992Feb27.222501.1716@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Feb27.130232.11124@oracorp.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1992 22:25:01 GMT

In article <1992Feb27.130232.11124@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com writes:

>Come on, Jeff, do *you* believe that Steven Harnad has explained
>anything about understanding with his example in Hungarian? Is the
>meaning of "understanding" clearer to you now than it was before you
>heard Harnad's explanation?

Harnad was not offering an explanation.  He was merely pointing out that
in some cases it's just *obvious* that there isn't understanding.

>I already knew that I didn't understand Hungarian (or Chinese, or
>Finnish, etc.) However, it is not obvious how to generalize from my
>subjective experience to something objective. And an objective
>definition is needed in order to say under what circumstances
>*another* being can be said to understand something.

But it is *not* necessary for the Chinese Room, since what we are interested
in is whether *you* would understand Chinese in that instance.  The key
point is to put yourself in the position of the man in the Room.  This
avoids the whole problem of "objective" definitions of understanding.  Do
you *really* think that you *would* understand Chinese in the CR case?

- michael




