From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!yale.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tdatirv!sarima Thu Dec 26 23:57:52 EST 1991
Article 2341 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!yale.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tdatirv!sarima
>From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle's response to silicon brain
Message-ID: <349@tdatirv.UUCP>
Date: 20 Dec 91 21:59:55 GMT
References: <40822@dime.cs.umass.edu> <1991Dec18.193242.10535@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <BSIMON.91Dec19071828@elvis.stsci.edu> <1991Dec19.141418.1132@linus.mitre.org>
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine
Lines: 26

In article <1991Dec19.141418.1132@linus.mitre.org> jkm@mbunix.mitre.org (Millen) writes:
|The fact is, that various parts of automobile engines have been
|computerized, viz., fuel injection, quite successfully.  On the
|other hand, it is also clear that certain substitutions will fail;
|if you try to change the explosion in the cylinder into a
|computer simulation, the engine stops working.  

Certainly.  When you replace a physical operation with its simultion it
stops working.  But it is important to note that it *stops* working.

As far as I can see Searle is proposing that some system can be operationally
equivalent to a human and still not possess 'intentionality' or 'causal
powers'.  This is a very different claim. Its like saying a simulated engine
would still rotate, but it wouldn't generate any power.

If he *is* claiming that there would be a functional difference, what is
it?  How do we tell that the Chinese Room lack intentionality?  What observable
action can a human perform under like conditions that the CR cannot?
[If the difference is not even theoretically observable, then it is irrelevant].


See you all after Xmas vacation.  [after all responses have expired - sigh].
-- 
---------------
uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)



