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Article 1985 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: fb0m+@andrew.cmu.edu (Franklin Boyle)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Chinese Room, from a different perspective
Message-ID: <0dEvyFC00iUz82j6ko@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 9 Dec 91 19:10:09 GMT
Organization: Cntr for Design of Educational Computing, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 24

Trent Tobler writes:

> How do you know that someone else (in this case, the knowledge base in 'your'
> mind) did not understand the chinese question.  There could still be two
> systems, one of which the man has understanding (english), and one which the
> identity (you) is not.  Just because there is one apparent system does not
> mean others do not exist.  In this case, we could argue there are still
> two systems.

Searle's argument is about "understanding" the way, for example, a native 
speaker of a language understands it.  There is no question that there could
be two systems (both in the same brain, of course), with one capable of 
"processing" Chinese symbols.  If you want to call the latter understanding, 
that's fine, but the argument is that it's not the same as "understanding".

> Why do I (identity) need to be aware of it for the system of symbols to have
> intelligence, awareness, etc.?

You need to have information about trees to understand discourse about
trees.  How do you get that information if it doesn't *physically* get into
your head, since the symbols do not physically have anything to do with
trees?  There is no magic.

-Frank


