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Article 4231 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: fb0m+@andrew.cmu.edu (Franklin Boyle)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <Ydgy1Gq00Uh7440NNH@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 3 Mar 92 20:23:46 GMT
Organization: Cntr for Design of Educational Computing, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 16

Antun Zirdum writes:

>Ah my freind, the question is not whether the Chinese room can
>understand frobnatz (without seeing one) its whether a BLIND MAN
>can understand frobnatz without seeing one? So you say that
>a blind man cannot understand things that he does not see.
>In my recollection, Hellen Kehler (sp?) did just fine understanding
>the world, while she had neither the sense of sight or hearing!
>Did you know she read, and typed Braille - you should read her
>autobiography sometime!

But she did have a sense of touch, and that makes all the difference
in the world.  As with the visual cortex, there is a topographic
mapping from the parts of the body onto the somatosensory cortex.

-Frank


