From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo Mon Mar  9 18:35:03 EST 1992
Article 4246 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Mar3.025214.26880@smsc.sony.com> <1992Mar3.201743.20894@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Mar3.220206.6241@beaver.cs.washington.edu>
Message-ID: <1992Mar4.172020.19505@psych.toronto.edu>
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1992 17:20:20 GMT

In article <1992Mar3.220206.6241@beaver.cs.washington.edu> pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis) writes:
>
>If the person engaged in the above activity were to spend several
>years watching their own responses to the queries, what makes you so
>certain that they would not then understand at least some of the
>symbols ? 
>
How could the length of time that a person suffles around meaningless
symbols possibly affect the meaning that they have? Charlie Chaplin,
in _Modern Times_ has a job in which he, in effect, "pushes around" the
same symbols with mind-numbing regularity.  Do these come to "mean"
something over time?  Nothing plus nothing still equals nothing.

Even if (and I suspect this is what you have in
mind) the person could come to abduce some sort of hypotheses about
the meaning of the symbols, this avenue is not open to the AI side
of the debate, because under strong AI, EVEN IF THE MAN'S SHORT TERM
MEMORY WERE WIPED OUT AFTER EACH QUESTION-EVENT, they would be committed
to the view that this system understands in EXACTLY the same way a  
native Chinese speaker does. It's the FUNCITON -- not the abduction --
that counts, for strong functionalism. (Actually, the only functionalist
I know who is actually this strong is Dave Chalmers and John McCarthy.
Even Fodor defers to ignorance when it comes to the implications of
functionalism for, say, qualia.)
>Such "watching" could doubtless consist of shuffling *different*
>symbols, and needless to say, the person wouldn't have any
>understanding, just like you or I, of what these were or meant.
>However, what their manipulation would give rise to understanding of
>the first set of symbols (the chinese ones).
>
>-- paul
>-- 
>Computer Science Laboratory	  "truth is out of style" - MC 900ft Jesus
>University of Washington 		<pauld@cs.washington.edu>


-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
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