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Article 4248 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: orourke@unix1.cs.umass.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <44318@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Date: 4 Mar 92 17:29:54 GMT
Article-I.D.: dime.44318
References: <44140@dime.cs.umass.edu> <1992Mar2.172515.15389@psych.toronto.edu> <44256@dime.cs.umass.edu> <1992Mar3.203249.23251@psych.toronto.edu>
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Reply-To: orourke@sophia.smith..edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
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In article <1992Mar3.203249.23251@psych.toronto.edu> 
	christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:

  >In article <44256@dime.cs.umass.edu> 
  	orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:

  >>How do you know what he would say if
  >>you asked him?  

>Simple. None of the Chinese characters he manipulates have any reference
>for him. He doesn't even know which are nouns and which are verbs. Without
 ^^^^^^^  ^^
>these (necessary but not sufficient) requirements, he can't possibly know
>the meanings of either the questions or his replies. Thus, he does
>not understand.

If you ask him in Chinese which are nouns and which are verbs, "he"
would answer correctly.  He the Chinese-speaker acts as if he knows.
What you are denying is that the system's-eye view has any relevance.

  >>Suppose the CR program's I/O was via the man's normal
  >>sensory organs, rather than slips of paper.  

>How do you think he examines the slips of paper? Vision, of course.

Sorry, I was unclear.  I meant:  suppose the CR program's input
was via the man's hearing, and its output was via the man's speech.

>It may turn out to be the case that semantics
>is reducible to syntax, but no one has shown it to be true.

I agree.  This is an explict "axiom" of Searle's argument.

  >>	In summary, there seem to be two ways to counter your
  >>argument:
  >>
  >>		1. The man really does understand Chinese, [...]

>This is obscurantism as well. It does massive violation to the notion of
>understanding being used. If you want to redefine terms, by all means do,
>but don't pretend that you're using them in their usual sense.

"Obscurantism" is opposition to the spread of knowledge, or deliberate
vagueness.  Which meaning do you intend?
	The entire memorization scenario stretches the meaning of
our terms.  It is a novel situation.  We cannot expect that terms
defined for normal psychology work in exactly the same sense when
applied to an unrealistic, literally impossible, situation.


