Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!news.mathworks.com!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!utgpu!pindor
From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Searle's Chinese Room refuted by Society of Mind
Message-ID: <DA2qqq.M6B@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <YLIKOSKI.95Jun6203133@gamma.hut.fi> <3r9l21$ql0@usenet.rpi.edu>
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 19:13:37 GMT
Lines: 82

In article <3r9l21$ql0@usenet.rpi.edu>,
Michael Andrew Turton <turtom@cortez.its.rpi.edu> wrote:
>In article <D9tEy8.K3F@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>,
>Andrzej Pindor <pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> wrote:
>
>Andrzej (replying to Gary):
>>You seem to be postulating an existence of "deep knowledge about what it 
>>means to understand something", which you admit we do not have. The trouble 
>>is that I do not see any solid argument that we should expect existence of
>>such knowledge. As I have argued,
>>even our own "understanding" amounts to an ability to provide consistent
>>answers to certain questions, i.e. to a set of behaviors, even if modeled
>>internally.
>
>Mike (debating Andrzej):
>	But Andrzej, there is a solid argument for the existence of
>understanding and it lies in the evolution of humans as social animals.

What is this "understanding" there is a solid argument for the existence of?
It must be possible to define it, otherwise could one have "a solid argument"
about something so vague that we cannot define it? And we certainly must have
some knowledge what it means to "understand" in your sense, right? I'd really
like to know. Gary seems to disagree that we have such knowledge (at least
a deep one). We must have some way of recognizing the presence of this 
"understanding", naturally different from observing behavior. Otherwise,
evolution of humans as social animals might have just had imprinted on us
certain behaviors as a response to specific behavior of others. 

>Individual success in social situations would be greatly enhanced by
>such traits as empathy, the ability to enagage in deception and other
>actions which indicate an awareness of the probable internal states
>of other individuals.  Such abilities would be placed under powerful
>favorable selection pressure.  Evidence for this comes from such diverse
>sources as evolutionary theory, anthropology, psychology and game theory.
>
OK, but how does this invalidate "understanding" as a complex of behaviors
coordinated with behaviors of others?

>Andrzej (agreeing with Gary):
>>This is a good example - it is impossible for a male to ever completely 
>>understand what it means to be a female, since a male is incapable of many
>>behaviors of a female (except in a movie fantasy, like the recent one with
>>Arnie giving a birth to a baby). And I certainly do not expect a computer to
>>be able to understand what it means to be human, and vice versa too(!). What
>>makes you think that these things are possible?
>
>Mike:
>	The problem for me lies with the words "completely understand."

I'd thought that it was clear what I meant by this in the above context - that 
there are female behaviors which a male is unable to predict  being incapable
of such behaviors himself. 

>Nobody can ever "completely understand" another person; the phrase doesn't
>seem to have any useful meaning.  I am not capable of many of the behaviors
>of Michael Jordon either, but this doesn't mean that in a social situation
>I could not interact with him successfully.  I think the focus should be 
>on whether understanding is sufficient to accomplish individual goals in
>dyadic and group situations.  Clearly, since males and females interact 
>successfully enough both to keep the species going and to achieve their 
>individual goals the issue of *complete* understanding is something for
>doleful conversations over beers in smoky bars.

It depends how 'complete' you want to be. You are right that if we take 
'complete' literally, than this is a moot point. However, my intetion was to 
point out that there are limits to mutual understanding, due to barriers in
simulating mutual behavior. This applies to many social situations, remember
Marie Antoinette's "if they do not have bread, why don't they eat cakes?"
Her behavioral experience did not include being poor and hungry.

>
>Mike Turton
>turtom@rpi.edu
>
Andrzej


-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
