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Article 1992 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle and the Chinese Room
Message-ID: <5828@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 9 Dec 91 21:56:49 GMT
References: <gdCb=YW00UhWQ2lpNp@andrew.cmu.edu> <YAMAUCHI.91Dec5040116@heron.cs.rochester.edu> <1991Dec5.191043.10565@psych.toronto.edu> <302@tdatirv.UUCP>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 14

In article <302@tdatirv.UUCP> sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>
>The serious error is Searle's reasoning is that he has *never* shown any
>*objective* evidence that my brain is doing anything that a computer attached
>to appropriate input devices could not do.

There may well be errors in his reasoning, but this is one of his
conclusions, so you should look for the errors in the arguments he
uses to reach that conclusion, not in the conclusion itself.  He
offers an existence proof (more or less) that the brain has causal
powers that are relevant to understanding and not just a matter
of running the right program.  If we accept the idea of existence
proofs, he doesn't have to offer any direct evidence, much less
say exactly what these powers are.


