From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo Mon Mar  9 18:33:27 EST 1992
Article 4099 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
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>From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Feb27.224138.4315@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Feb27.130232.11124@oracorp.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1992 22:41:38 GMT

In article <1992Feb27.130232.11124@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com writes:
>jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>
>Quote from: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)

No, acutally it was Michael Gemar who originally posted this.

>     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..."
>

Then this was, I believe, Jeff Dalton. I'd really appreciate it if
things I didn't say weren't attributed to me. I get in enough trouble
for the things I do say!

>> Some AI types are claiming that "understand" as used in Searle's
>> arguments needs to be defined, explained, etc before they will take it
>> seriously.  If they don't think there's something obscure about it,
>> why don't they just tell us what it means and save a lot of time and
>> net bandwidth.
>
>


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