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Article 4488 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: The Systems Reply I
Message-ID: <1992Mar16.231755.32589@spss.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1992 23:17:55 GMT
References: <1992Mar6.185926.18497@oracorp.com> <1992Mar9.171606.6886@psych.toronto.edu>
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In article <1992Mar9.171606.6886@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>The crucial move that Searle makes it to assume that if a mind (however
>constituted) performs computations that would generate subjective
>experience (understanding, qualia, whatever), then the mind performing
>the computations should have these experiences.  

And this assumption seems very strange to me.  It seems to underlie a number
of statements you've made about the CR:

"Even if the CR gave interpretable answers, the person doing the purely
syntactic manipulations wouldn't understand."

"If you do this [follow the CR rules], will you understand Chinese in the
way you understand other languages?"

"Because the issue at question is whether or not the CR process generates
understanding in the *man*."

In the original CR story, the man surely does not understand Chinese; but
what does this prove exactly?  In the metaphor, the man corresponds to the
CPU, the rulebooks to the algorithm.  The story is thus a demonstration 
that CPUs cannot understand.  But who maintains that they could?  
If a computer is executing a program that passes the Turing Test, 
it would be absurd to maintain that the computer itself is intelligent.
Why, then, all this emphasis on whether the man in the CR, who plays the
role of the CPU, understands or not?  

The situation doesn't really change by having the man memorize the CR
rules.  His conscious mind still performs the role, merely, of 
unintelligent executor of the CR algorithm.  There is no reason to
expect that he will have any insight into the algorithm or any
understanding of Chinese, any more (to use another poster's example)
than a Macintosh executing Soft-PC itself runs DOS programs.

All this said, I think the CR story helps point out a difference between
human and (traditional symbolic) computer operation.   Why does the 
man in the CR, or the CPU, not understand Chinese?  Surely part of the
answer is that they are such narrow informational channels.  The CPU
can handle only a few floating point numbers at a time; the man, only
a few simple rules.  Whatever mental phenomena occur in the system 
must occur at a higher level, which cannot fit into this narrow channel.
Contrast the brain, which has a billion little processors running
concurrently; here we run into no such width limitations.  


