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Article 1540 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: matt@physics.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle (was Re: Daniel Dennett (was Re: Commenting on the posting))
Message-ID: <MATT.91Nov24000158@physics.berkeley.edu>
Date: 24 Nov 91 06:01:58 GMT
References: <1991Nov14.223348.4076@milton.u.washington.edu>
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In-reply-to: yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu's message of 24 Nov 91 10:27:56 GMT

In article <YAMAUCHI.91Nov24022756@magenta.cs.rochester.edu> yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) writes:

> He does admit that humans are machines, but he never says what it is
> about humans that gives them the "semantics" that other machines
> "lack".  From reading his essays, I received the distinct impression
> that he believes this has something to do with the specific chemical
> composition of the human brain...

Indeed.  Searle's argument sounds more limited at first than it really
is.  The point of his "Chinese room" argument, for example, is that
symbolic manipulation cannot be thinking.  He makes it clear, however,
that in his opinion a digital computer cannot do anything other than
symbolic manipulation.  (And I believe that in one of his seminars
here, he extended this to any digital circuit.  I heard this
second-hand, though, so perhaps you shouldn't take it too seriously.)

It isn't terribly clear to me what kind of system could possibly do
anything other than symbolic manipulation, defined so expansively.
This argument makes me nervous just because it is so terribly broad:
if an argument seems to apply to everything, it suggests to me that
there is a logical flaw in it somewhere.

Unless Searle can explain very clearly just what it is about the human
brain that makes his argument fail to apply to it, I don't think that
his case can be considered proven.  



--
Matthew Austern              I dreamt I was being followed by a roving band of
(415) 644-2618               of young Republicans, all wearing the same suit,
matt@physics.berkeley.edu    taunting me and shouting, "Politically correct
austern@theorm.lbl.gov       multiculturist scum!"... They were going to make
austern@lbl.bitnet	     me kiss Jesse Helms's picture when I woke up.


