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Article 4408 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Message-ID: <6386@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 11 Mar 92 17:40:59 GMT
References: <1992Mar7.010644.1466@beaver.cs.washington.edu> <1992Mar9.162941.1959@psych.toronto.edu> <SMAILL.92Mar9215108@sin.aisb.ed.ac.uk>
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In article <SMAILL.92Mar9215108@sin.aisb.ed.ac.uk> smaill@aisb.ed.ac.uk (Alan Smaill) writes:
>In article <1992Mar9.162941.1959@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>
>   Yes, I *do* believe that I have special access to my understanding, or
>   at least to my *beliefs* about my understanding.  I *know* when I believe
>   I understand Chinese.  I may be wrong that I in fact *do* understand it,
>   but, unlike any other person, I cannot be wrong about my *belief* that
>   I understand it.  I *do* stand in a privileged position with regard to
>   my mental states.  (Otherwise, to use a favorite example, we'd need a
>   doctor to tell us whether we were in pain or not.)
>
>   If you wish to deny an individual privileged access to their mental states,
>   fine, but it's going to take a *lot* of argument. 

>So, what happened to the sub-conscious?  to repression of beliefs?
>Is it not possible to deceive oneself as to what one really believes?

I think it's amazing that Michael Gemar has been driven back to
defending, not the claim that the person in the Room doesn't
understand Chinese, or even the claim that the person in the Room
knows whether or not they understand Chinese, but merely that claim
that the person in the Room knows whether or not they _believe_ they
understand Chinese.

I guess this shows that the anti-Searle strategy of questioning
everything has paid off.  Pretty soon the people trying to explain
Searle's argument will be driven back to defending the claim that the
person in the Room knows whether or not they believe they believe they
understand Chinese.  After all (subconscious, suppression of beliefs,
and whatever else Alan Smaill wants to mention), maybe they don't
actually believe they understand Chinese.  Maybe they just think
(believe) they believe that.  And so on.

This whole regress should be avoided.  The person in the Room would
not understand Chinese.  But they might _believe_ they understood
Chinese.  After all, they may have been convinced by various people
on the net that anyone who can conduct a conversation in Chinese
must understand Chinese (no matter how much they have to consult
tables and charts and shuffle squiggles).

Of course, it is possible (logically possible at least) that the
person in the Room does understand Chinese.  For instance, they
may have learned Chinese as a child and forgotten this.  And if
they never learned to read Chinese, they might not know that that's
what the squiggles going in and out of the Room are.

It should be obvious that this sort of possibility is a special case
and that it doesn't force us to reject the conclusion that the person
in the Room wouldn't understand Chinese.  If someone wants to argue
that the person would understand Chinese, but the understanding
would be unconscious or suppressed, they should be able to give
some reason why this would be so in general.  Otherwise it's just
another special case.

-- jd


