From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael Mon Dec 16 11:00:58 EST 1991
Article 2024 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!michael
>From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Searle and the Chinese Room
Message-ID: <1991Dec10.213907.17512@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1991Dec5.191043.10565@psych.toronto.edu> <u95kcB2w164w@elrond.toppoint.de>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1991 21:39:07 GMT

In article <u95kcB2w164w@elrond.toppoint.de> freitag@elrond.toppoint.de (Claus Schoenleber) writes:
>michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:
>
>
>> [Some lines on holiday]
>> The strength of Searle's arugment is that, contrary to what some may claim,
>> it does not rest on any particular way of telling the Chinese Room story.  Th
>> argument simply is that it is impossible to generate semantics from a purely
>> syntactic system.  This, Searle argues, is a *logical* point, true simply in
>> virtue of what the words "syntax" and "semantics" mean.  
>> [Following lines vanished]
>
>What, please, is the (your) meaning of "syntax" / "semantics"?
>(especially "semantics")

Syntax is the rule-based manipulation of marks due to their shape.

Semantics is the meaning that symbols have due to their reference to things
in the world (this is rough and ready, and would have to be qualified to cover
things like unicorns and numbers).


>BTW, isn't it possible, that there does exist a level of complexity in syntax,
>where the quantity of syntax changes to quality (i.e. semantics)? 2 cents? ;-)

This seems to be the assertion that strong AI makes.  It seems to me, given
Searle's argument, that it is up to his critics to demonstrate *how* such
a thing would be possible.  If Searle is correct, and his argument is
essentially true because of the definition of the terms, then we should no
more expect lots of syntax to yield semantics than we should expect that
a whole bunch of bachelors put together would somehow yield some who aren't
unmarried males.

- michael



