From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!pindor Mon Mar  9 18:35:20 EST 1992
Article 4275 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
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>From: pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <1992Mar5.153439.14453@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCS Public Access
References: <1992Feb25.183002.17341@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <1992Feb27.211632.21398@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Mar2.151229.13822@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <1992Mar2.174626.18508@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Mar3.211437.12307@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <471@tdatirv.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1992 15:34:39 GMT

In article <471@tdatirv.UUCP> sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>In article <1992Mar3.211437.12307@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>|>1) I *don't* insists on computers receiving sensory info in the same way
>|>humans do.  See above.
>|>
>|Then you should not insist on computers having the same understanding a humans
>|have (see above).
>
>Well, I personally would not, but does that mean that they do not understand?
>
>To insist that understanding is limited to *just* what humans do is a truly
>dangerous position.  Dolphins most certainly do not understand things in
>exactly the same way as humans.  Would you therefor deny *them* understanding?
>
>I would also be *very* surprised if natives of Tau Ceti 3 (if such exist)
>used exactly the same mode of understanding as we do.  In fact I would be
>absolutely stunned if they even had a neural structure similar to ours
>in more than just general features.  (They *might* not even have neurons
>in the same way we do).  Would you deny *them* understanding?
>
>Whatever criterion we apply to computers must also apply to living things.
>Thus, whatever understanding is, either only humans can ever have it,
>by definition, or there is some range of variation in mechanism that
>remains withing the meaning of th term.
>
>The question is, what is this range?  How different can a process be and
>still be called 'understanding'?
>
>This is *not* an easy question.  It is made even harder by the fact that
>we do not yet know how *we* understand things, so we cannot even tell
>how close something else is to our mechanism.
>-- 
I must have been expressing myself very badly, because that's exactly the point
I have been trying to make in several postings: insisting that 'understanding'
can only mean exactly the same thing as human understanding is unreasonable 
when applied to other (non-human systems). Unless one limits 'understanding'
to humans only, one has to allow that 'understanding' in other system will
have only a partial overlap with what human understandig covers. Some defi-
nition of understanding would be helpful here - it would either limit it to
humans or be broad enough to allow other systems too. I like you mention
dolphins - would searlites allow for them to have some understanding and if so,
on basis of what?
>---------------
>uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)
>


-- 
Andrzej Pindor
University of Toronto
Computing Services
pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca


