From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!ccu.umanitoba.ca!zirdum Tue Mar 24 09:56:37 EST 1992
Article 4535 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Definition of understanding
Keywords: meaning, understanding
Message-ID: <1992Mar18.062736.5270@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Date: 18 Mar 92 06:27:36 GMT
References: <6384@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1992Mar12.191404.1316@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <6421@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Lines: 105

In article <6421@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>In article <1992Mar12.191404.1316@ccu.umanitoba.ca> zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Antun Zirdum) writes:
>>>read.  Is there really a big mystery about what "understand Chinese"
>>>means?
>>>
>>Searle clearly does not *understand* what the system reply is!
>>Searle does not know what it means to understand Chinese or any
>>language!
>
>I guess he must be a complete idiot then!

I did not say complete! But he clearly cannot show what
it means to understand something. Can you do any better?
>
>>Please understand that the AI side never wanted to imply that the
>>person inside the room would understand chinese,
>
>Could have fooled me.  (BTW, I am very familiar with the argument
>that it's the system that understands.)
>
Seems you are not familiar enough with the systems reply!
(or where you joking, I don't see a smiley :-) I am of course
being serious, the system does understand, while the person
performing the computations has as much understanding as the
electrical patterns in your brain.
>>>> Problem, which I have tried to point out in the past, is in the
>>>> content of the database for the Chinese squiggles. English word
>>>> `hamburger` correlates in the English person's mind for instance with
>>>> a mental picture of hamburger - the person had seen a hamburger in the
>>>> past and knew this object was 'a hamburger'.
>>>
>>>But these are two different things!  (Being correlated with a picture
>>>vs knowing a certain object was a hamburger.)
>>>
>>You say 'tomata', I say 'tomaato'!
>
>Look, if you want to claim that correlation with a picture and
>knowing something is a hamburger, you ought to at least be willing
>to offer an argument.

For you it is correlation, for the system it is understanding!
(this is not an argument, but an attempt to clarify)
>
>> Just because I look in your
>>brain with a brain scanner and say 'hey, you don't understand
>>what hamburger means, all I see when you look at a hamburger
>>is a correlation of the image in your eyes with a mental map!
>>And that does not constitute understanding!'
>>You would argue (and so would the computer), but I do indeed
>>know what hamburger means!
>
>You have it backwards.  I am not arguing that because there is
>a correlation there is no understanding.  I'm simply pointing
>out that finding a correlation isn't necessarily the same as
>finding some understanding.  For example, I could have a correlation
>between a word in English and a word in Chinese, so that whenever
>I thought of the English word I thought of the Chinese word too,
>even if I had no idea what the Chinese word meant.
>
So what, the English words would simply have more correlations
than the Chinese words. Think of it this way, if you did not
understand what the English word meant, what would happen to
your understanding? What *IS* the difference between understanding
english and Chinese?

Understanding is simply a short form of saying, "yes, there is
a correlation between that and other structures in my brain!"
Unless you can offer a solid example of an understanding of
something that cannot be tied down physically, then you can
argue that correlation is not sufficient for understanding!

This whole thing about understanding/semantics is a giant
illusion. It seems to be there, but upon closer inspection
there is nothing to examine. Your argument that "finding
a correlation is not necessarily the same as finding understanding
", is meaningless since what you are attempting to find is
the external representation of the subjective understanding.
If you disagree with this then, by all means, please, explain
what is it exactly what you are looking for to find understanding?
What would satisfy you that you had found understanding?
(AH, understanding at last! ;-) This is basically the problem
that Searle is having, except he goes one step further - he
states that since the person is looking at the system, and
since the person does not understand - there is no understanding!

So again, I repeat - What exactly do you expect to find, that
when you see it you will exclaim - AH, UNDERSTANDING!
(This question is doubly emphasized!)
>>>But this is a different case again.  You can't just assume that all
>>>the information humans have is just a matter of correlations between
>>>meaningless squiggles.  Indeed, maybe it's not possible to put all the
>>>information into a database.
>>>
>>If it cannot be put into a database, it is not information!
>
>Well, then don't assume that all humans have is information.
>
>-- jd


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*   AZ    -- zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca                            *
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