From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Tue May 12 15:49:09 EDT 1992
Article 5423 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: Comments on Searle
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <92May4.231849edt.47880@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
Message-ID: <1992May5.204157.23037@psych.toronto.edu>
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 5 May 1992 20:41:57 GMT

I guess I'll jump into the fray yet again...

In article <92May4.231849edt.47880@neat.cs.toronto.edu> maione@cs.toronto.edu (Ian Christopher Maione) writes:

>     3. "Computer programs are entirely defined by their formal,
>         syntactic structure"  -->  in my opinion, right here is where
>         to look to find a flaw in Searle's argument.  Even if you
>         accept this statement (and I think it could be argued either
>         way), if you read the Chinese Room argument carefully, there
>         is an equivocation going on between computer programs, and
>         implementations of computer programs.  There is no physical
>         entity which is a computer program, just as you can't point to
>         something and say "this is the number 2".  A computer program
>         is a mathematical object - an implementation of one is a
>         physical object.  I don't see why one should a priori suppose
>         that the implementation doesn't have the appropriate causal
>         properties in (1), particularly since Searle doesn't tell us
>         anything about them.
>

While I agree that a computer program is, in itself, not a physical 
entity, it is hard for me to see how implementation changes things.  Remember
that, in order to counter Searle, *all* implementations of the same program must
generate semantics or have the appropriate "causal powers" - otherwise Searle is
right in that it cannot be *solely* in virtue of running a program that
a computer would have understanding.  However, what do all possible
implementations of a program have in common *except* the abstract structure?
Remember that the same program can be implemented on a computer, with beer
cans and string powered by windmills, by the Bolivian economy, by a school
of fish directed appropriately, by the interaction of galaxies, etc.  It
is not at all clear to me that all these have *anything* in common except
being (somewhat) constituted of material (is the Bolivian economy material?)
*and* having the same abstract structure.  If you're looking for the same
"causal powers" in *all* of these implementations, these powers are going
to have be abstract - as abstract as a program.  The upshot of all of this
is that I don't see that implementation avoids the problems that Searle
claims exist.

- michael
 



