From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!utcsri!rpi!uwm.edu!wupost!uunet!psinntp!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw Thu Oct  8 10:11:16 EDT 1992
Article 7118 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca sci.skeptic:21073 comp.ai.philosophy:7118
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!utcsri!rpi!uwm.edu!wupost!uunet!psinntp!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw
>From: throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: CR and category errors
Summary: I think *pro*CR-ers have the category error
Message-ID: <718259952@sheol.UUCP>
Date: 05 Oct 92 01:58:13 GMT
References: <1992Sep28.164828.2122@meteor.wisc.edu>
Lines: 37

: From: tobis@meteor.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis)
: Message-ID: <1992Sep28.164828.2122@meteor.wisc.edu>
: I hereby say (again) that Searle's Chinese Room argument is compelling,
: and that arguments against it make a deep and irreperable category
: mistake. 

Hmmmmm?  I've always thought just the opposite.  That is, Searle
commits the category error of confusing the process with the
processor.

: Searle points out that, granting that natural language algorithms
: exist, a non-Chinese speaking human executing the algorithm will
: certainly give functionally correct responses in Chinese to inputs
: in Chinese. The question is whether any "understanding" of Chinese
: thereby occurs. 

So far, so good.

: It is clear that the algorithm is a static mathematical
: structure, and that the human does not understand the conversation he is
: facilitating, although functionally appropriate exchanges in Chinese are
: occuring. The point of this description is to clarify the difference between
: functional Chinese and experiential Chinese: the latter is obviously not
: occuring.

Ah.  I think that this confuses the algorithm with the process that
executes it.  That is, I agree that the algorithm doesn't understand
anything because it can't experience anything, being a static
structure.  But the process resulting from instantiating the
algorithm on some processor is NOT a static structure, and I see
no reason to suppose that such a process can have experiences.

Oh, and as to the human not understanding, supposing that it should
is the category error of confusing the human (the processor) with
the process (the alleged AI).
--
Wayne Throop  ...!mcnc!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw


