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Article 4863 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: mcdermott-drew@CS.YALE.EDU (Drew McDermott)
Subject: The Challenge
Message-ID: <1992Apr1.150750.9618@cs.yale.edu>
Summary: No one wants to accept
Keywords: Searle, Chinese Room
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Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158
References: <1992Mar16.224423.29809@psych.toronto.edu> <centaur.700790865@cc.gatech.edu> <6419@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1992 15:07:50 GMT
Lines: 97

I have been mildly surprised by the reaction to my "challenge"
regarding the Chinese Room.  It turns out that no one is willing
actually to defend the argument.  Everyone actually wants to talk
about something else:

  In article <6419@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

  >If we're going to try to line up the arguments on both sides
  >(as I think McDermott suggests), let's do it for the Turing Test
  >too.  A defeat for the TT would make the entire discussion much
  >more reasonable, IMHO.

Michael Gemar (in e-mail) suggested that the CR was not, after all,
the issue, but syntax vs. semantics was.  Christopher Green made the
same point, in a posting I seem to have misplaced.  

Tom Blenko pointed out that Searle should be the best source for his
own argument:

  I'm game. I nominate John Searle to represent his own position and
  rebut the opposing positions. Of course, he's already done this, so
  half the challenge is already completed.

I wondered if anyone would make this suggestion.  It's seemingly
sensible, but of course if Searle knew anything about computation we
wouldn't be discussing the Chinese Room in the first place.  Besides,
Searle's writings on the subject are voluminous, when the basic
argument can be stated in a paragraph.  Surely if there is any merit
to it, it should be possible to state it clearly, succinctly, and in a
way that takes objections into account nonsophistically.

Anyway, what I plan to do is post the following message in the future
when the Room comes up:

>From the FAQ file (that is, of Fruitlessly Argued Quagmires):

Searle's Chinese Room argument appears to be less an argument than an
opportunity for people to disagree about understanding and semantics.
At least in this newsgroup, there are few people who are willing to
defend the Chinese Room argument as such, although there are many who
think that those who attack the argument are trivializing important
questions.  The consensus seems to be that it is better to discuss
those questions directly than to put them in the context of the
Chinese Room.  I have come to this conclusion because no one was
willing to accept the following

                    ** CHALLENGE **

[Originally posted March 13, 1992]

I suggest that the pro-CR people (e.g., Gemar, Green, Dalton) produce
The Canonical Version of the Chinese Room argument.  They've heard the
Systems Reply, so the Canonical Version should be written so that it
anticipates the Systems Reply.  (Daryl McCullough's summary of it says
everything that needs to be said, so start from there.)

After they've produced a draft, they publish it on this newsgroup.
The anti-CR people (e.g., me, Chalmers, McCullough) write a
refutation, and publish that.  Now, here's where it gets novel.  The
refutation must be preceded by the original argument.  It may quote
from it, but the whole original argument must appear.  Much of the
confusion surrounding the Chinese Room stems from the fact that points
are made five levels down in reductios that innocent bystanders take
to be standalone claims.

With this refutation in hand, the pro-CR group can then generate a
revised argument that in their opinion gets around the refutation.
They are allowed to revise the initial argument, but *not* to tack on
a rebuttal to the refutation.  The final product should not look like
a conversation; the argument may quote from the refutation, but must
do so by some anticipatory stylistic device.  ("Our opponents say
below that ..., but obviously ....")  The anti-CR group then gets to
revise the refutation, but again can only publish the latest version
of the refutation preceded by the newest version of the argument.  The
process stops when each side thinks that no further progress can be
made, at which point each side declares itself the winner.  The next
time someone raises the Chinese Room, we can post a copy of this
Definitive Version of the controversy to the newsgroup and be done
with it.  I would be willing to submit the result to some forum like
SIGART Bulletin, or some other oddball periodical.

The lists of names above are not meant to be exclusive, but I think
one person on each side should be chosen to be Editor, and the three
anti-CR people above would be my nominees.  (In other words, I will
volunteer if no one else will.)  The Editor solicits ideas in response
to the latest round from the other side, and consolidates them into a
whole, that any contributor is of course free to dissent from.

How about it?

-----

I am still willing to pursue this if anyone else is, but I think the
suggestion that we move the discussions of understanding and semantics
out of the Room is a good one.

                                             -- Drew McDermott


