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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Books on philosophy of AI
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References: <D3DLF2.34L@news.cern.ch> <D3L5vH.H8B@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <jqbD3LruB.6zx@netcom.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1995 17:19:15 GMT
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In article <jqbD3LruB.6zx@netcom.com> jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter) writes:
>In article <D3L5vH.H8B@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>,
>Jeff Dalton <jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>>In article <D3DLF2.34L@news.cern.ch> hallam@dxal18.cern.ch writes:
>>
>>>Just don't spend too long getting wound up by Searle's chinese room :-)
>>>I think the true interest of the problem is not how to squish it but how
>>>to squish it in a novel way without writing a paper the length of a novel.
>>>Its a pretty silly argument and he employs circular reasoning in a very
>>>annoying fashion "If I don't understand chinese does it make sense to say
>>>that myself plus a few bits of paper can understand it?". The bits of paper
>>>being precisely the computer program which he is fighting against. Huh!
>>
>>So what's the circularity?
>
>This seems to me very close to asking of "p -> q; q -> p; therefore q",
>"So what's the circularity?"  How does one respond?  By defining a 
>circularity?  By explaining the rules of logic?

I have seen some claims that Searle is begging the question at various
points.  (Drew McDermott holds such a view, for instance.)  But I've
never encountered this particular circularity claim before.  OTOH, I
have seen a number of accounts of Searle's arguments which don't
say there's any circularity.  Finally, it's not clear to me just what
he thinks the circularity is.  You've given an argument that is
circular (your "p -> q; ...").  All he's done is quote a single 
sentence.

>In answer to Searle's question, we can answer that perhaps it does make sense
>unless we simply assume without argument that bits of paper (i.e., computer
>programs; if for some reason you don't accept this equivalence, then you
>should be asking about it, not circularity) cannot understand Chinese. 
>Of course, that assumption is precisely what Searle is claiming to show.
>It is hard to get more circular than that.

Why do you say "unless we simply assume without argument"?  That's not
the only possibility, because we might instead have an argument.

Then you have us assuming that "bits of paper cannot understand
Chinese" and claim that's what Searle is claiming to show.  Where
does Searle ever claim that?

(And whether or not I accept the equivalence between programs
and bits of paper, I can ask about a claimed circularity.)

-- jd
