From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!cam Tue Nov 26 12:30:37 EST 1991
Article 1407 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca rec.arts.books:10158 sci.philosophy.tech:999 comp.ai.philosophy:1407
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!cam
>From: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Daniel Dennett (was Re: Commenting on the posting
Message-ID: <15015@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 19 Nov 91 18:27:26 GMT
References: <1991Nov14.223348.4076@milton.u.washington.edu> <1991Nov15.160741.5495@husc3.harvard.edu> <11749@star.cs.vu.nl>
Organization: Edinburgh University
Lines: 14

In article <11749@star.cs.vu.nl> peter@cs.vu.nl (Grunwald PD) writes:

>Searle says: 'Machines can never be conscious (or even intelligent (!?)) because
>		they inherently lack 'semantics', which is necessary for
>		consciousness and inherently only available to human beings '

Searle is commonly supposed to have said this. In fact, Searle is not so
foolish. He has said quite clearly that machines _can_ think, since we
are biological machines, _but_ that a machine could not think _solely_
by virtue of _syntactic_ manipulations. That is his point in a nutshell.
-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh          +44 (0)31 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205


