From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!mcnc!aurs01!throop Tue May 12 15:48:52 EDT 1992
Article 5391 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: throop@aurs01.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Systems Reply I
Message-ID: <60633@aurs01.UUCP>
Date: 4 May 92 14:17:42 GMT
References: <6641@skye.ed.ac.uk> <6639@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Sender: news@aurs01.UUCP
Lines: 44

>> daryl@oracorp.com
> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
>> If you wish to show that
>> computers lack something that humans possess, it seems to me that you
>> need to show (a) that computers lack it, and (b) that humans possess
>> it. If you only prove (a) then you have not proved your point.
>> [...]
>> I don't doubt human understanding.
>> Nobody is disputing that humans understand,

> That should take care of (b).  Can we now look at the arguments
> on (a) without further demands that we must also show (b)?

I think it is obvious that "that" does NOT "take care of (b)".  The
term "understanding" that nobody is denying to humans must be shown to
be the same entity that "computers lack".  All that has been argued so
far is that computers lack a mathematical theorem-truth oracle, and
that this is part of what "understanding" is.  Or that computers lack
"semantics" and that this is part of what understanding is.

But wait a moment, in making these claims about computers, certain
facts about the meaning of "understanding" have been put forward,
without any demonstration that these facts are consistent with what
"nobody disputes".

In this rather obvious and straightforward sense, (b) has not yet been
addressed.  Just because some single word is used in two contexts
doesn't imply that the word has the same meaning in both cases.

> I see no reason to prove that humans have understanding in the sense
> required for the Chinese Room.  And the idea that this is something we
> ought to doubt, that we need and don't have evidence that humans can
> understand in that sense, looks to me like nothing more than an
> attempt to avoid having to consider the arguments against computer
> understanding.

Nonsense.  The claims are made that "computers lack X" and that "humans
have Y".  And we're supposed to accept that it isn't relevant to
discuss whether "X is equivalent to Y" in trying to discover whether
"computers lack Y"?  Again I say, nonsense.  Far from being an attempt
to avoid considering the issue, it strikes me as an attempt to consider
one of the most crucial parts of the issue.

Wayne Throop       ...!mcnc!aurgate!throop


