From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!ames!ncar!uchinews!spssig!markrose Mon Dec  9 10:48:21 EST 1991
Article 1897 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle, again
Message-ID: <1991Dec06.012355.28517@spss.com>
Date: 6 Dec 91 01:23:55 GMT
References: <2127@ucl-cs.uucp> <91338.113617KELLYDK@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> <5796@skye.ed.ac.uk>
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In article <5796@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>Searle considers robots, at least, because of the so-called
>"robot reply": if you give the Room some sensors, the ability
>to manipulate objects, etc, it will understand.  Searle points
>out that the outputs of the sensors, the control instructions
>for the manipulators, etc, are just more symbols that have to
>-- somehow -- be given meanings.  So it's symbol manipulation
>again.

By the same reasoning, human beings have no ability to refer to things in
the outside world either.  All that happens inside the brain, after all,
is neuronal and chemical activity.  The connections to the external world
are themselves nerves, and contain nothing but more neuronal and chemical
activity.

Now, what's wrong with this formulation?  Surely the fact that some of that
neurochemical action encodes a huge amount of actual sensory and motor  
experience with the outside world.  Whatever exactly "meaning" is, it's 
nothing without this experience, and the conceptual models tied up with it.

Well, the Room (or any AI) could have representations of the same kind
of information-- in fact, it had better, if it is to be considered intelligent.
The fact that the Room's ability to deal with the external world is 
ultimately a bunch of computer instructions is no more significant than
the fact that our ability to do the same thing is ultimately a bunch of
neurochemistry.


