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Article 1990 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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tle!aiai!jeff
>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle, again
Message-ID: <5826@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 9 Dec 91 21:32:26 GMT
References: <5796@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1991Dec06.012355.28517@spss.com> <5814@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1991Dec06.233615.27051@spss.com>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 30

In article <1991Dec06.233615.27051@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>In article <5814@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>>If Searle's right about the Chinese Room without sensors, I don't
>>see why adding sensors would suddenly solve the problem.  Do you?
>
>I think you're playing tricks here.  I talked about incorporating a
>huge amount of sensory and motor experience, and the concepts associated
>with them, into an AI program.

If Searle's right about the CR, it doesn't matter what the program is.
So either you have an argument against the CR w/o sensors, or it must
be something about adding sensors that makes the difference.

>You're talking about "adding sensors."

But what else has changed?  Switching to a different program, no
matter how much experience has been put into it (whether directly
or by adding more as it runs), still leaves you in the case
covered by the CR argument (modulo the qualification about memory
below).

>No, adding sensors would in itself do no more than adding fins and
>fog lights.  Creating the facilities to interact with the outside world
>and to accumulate experience with it is a different story.

Why does it matter that the experience comes from sensors rather
than talking to people?  Or are you just making the "the Chinese
Room doesn't have any memory" argument?

-- jeff


