From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!uwm.edu!wupost!uunet!tdatirv!sarima Thu Apr 16 11:34:16 EDT 1992
Article 5068 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Systems Reply I
Message-ID: <524@tdatirv.UUCP>
Date: 11 Apr 92 00:18:59 GMT
References: <1992Mar28.141316.16968@oracorp.com> <6590@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Reply-To: sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Teradata Corp., Irvine
Lines: 45

In article <6590@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
|In article <1992Mar28.141316.16968@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
|>
|>I can only reiterate what I have said before.  If you wish to show that
|>computers lack something that humans possess, it seems to me that you
|>need to show (a) that computers lack it, and (b) that humans possess
|>it. If you only prove (a) then you have not proved your point.
|
|Not to your satisfaction, perhaps.  I see no reason to _prove_ that
|humans have understanding in the sense required for the Chinese Room,
|for instance.

That is *not* what Daryl is asking for; he, and I, are asking for evidence
(not even proof, just evidence) that humans understand in a way that
Searle's CR does not.

We are really all agreed that humans understand things, what is dividing
us is how to determine if something else does.

So Searle has shown that the CR lacks something he chooses to call
'understanding', why should I believe that humans have this particular
brand of 'understanding' and not some other?  Why should Searle's definition
(or lack of it) be nay better than mine? or Darryl's?

|What interests me in this is whether or not computers can understand,
|and not in whether or not I can convince a determined skeptic that
|humans can understand.  Other people may have different interests,
|of course.

That is also my interest (in this group).  But what is understanding?
What is it that we humans have that we are looking for in computers?
Until we know that we cannot answer the question.

|Now, if an argument against computer understanding also applied
|to humans, I would regard that as reason to conclude the argument
|was wrong.  But I'm certainly not going to conclude the argument
|is wrong just because no one has yet shown it doesn't apply to humans.
|Why should I?

But what if I show reason to believe it might, or could, apply to humans?

Does this not at least weaken the force of the argument?
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uunet!tdatirv!sarima				(Stanley Friesen)


