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Article 1889 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle, again
Message-ID: <1991Dec05.200352.26404@spss.com>
Date: 5 Dec 91 20:03:52 GMT
References: <2127@ucl-cs.uucp> <91338.113617KELLYDK@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
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In article <91338.113617KELLYDK@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> KELLYDK@QUCDN.QueensU.CA (Doug Kelly) writes:
>How do you distinguish my jibberish book from the genuine
>book that somehow mysteriously contains understanding.

In the same way that you distinguish the works of Shakespeare from the
output of a group of monkeys which has typed out the same text randomly:
that is, you don't, they're identical.  One text is a work of genius;
the other is the product of a bunch of monkeys.  Similarly, the text of
the Chinese Room algorithm is an exceedingly clever compendium of linguistic
and real world information; your random text that happens to match it
is just gibberish.  

Amazing stuff, random combinations of letters.  Just think, the source code
to the Chinese Room lies somewhere in Jorge Luis Borges' Library of Babel.
If only we had its call number.


