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From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Penrose and Searle (was Re: Roger Penrose's fixed ideas)
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References: <39posv$mr0@nnrp.ucs.ubc.ca> <JMC.94Nov22011226@white.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il> <Czu5zD.Dto@festival.ed.ac.uk> <3b65gu$v08@quartz.ucs.ualberta.ca>
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 19:54:18 GMT
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In article <3b65gu$v08@quartz.ucs.ualberta.ca>,
Brian Dell <dellb@gpu2.srv.ualberta.ca> wrote:
>This is why Searle uses language instead of some other activity.  I 
>learn a foreign language by relating its terms to what I already know.  
>I know what "pomme de terre" means because I know it refers to the same 
>thing as "apple".

Hmm, I'd say something about this, but I don't want to spoil the fun when
you go to a French restaurant and order an pie with _pommes de terre_ in it.

The important question, however, is not how you learn a foreign language
but how you learn your native language.  How did you learn "apple"?
And what grounds have you for supposing that a computer cannot learn
it the same way?

>The problem with computers is that they don't hit this stopping place.  
>They translate a higher langauge into assembler, assembler into binary, 
>and so on all the way down to the level of electrons.  It never stops 
>this regression by saying "ok, I don't have to translate anymore because 
>I am back on familiar ground."

This is a somewhat bizarre view of how a computer works.  A computer 
running a program is running machine code-- period.  It doesn't "translate"
this code into "electrons"; the code tells it what physical operations to
perform.  Higher languages and assembler exist for the convenience of
human beings; programs written in either are translated into machine code
before execution.

What this all has to do with understanding is unclear.  Why should the
computer have to be on "familiar ground", whatever that means, in order
to understand anything?

And what grounds have you for believing that a similar reductionistic
analysis doesn't apply to your own brain, "proving" that you can't understand
anything either?  Whatever you perceive or feel is ultimately produced
by the activities of neurons and brain chemicals; and those are ultimately
expressions of atoms... and so what?  Why do you think that neurons can
support understanding and silicon chips cannot?

>Does a computer make sense of the ultimate product of its translation: 
>the configuration of electrons?  No.  It can never see the forest for 
>the trees.  
>
>I get the "aha!" reaction when I see how something is *relevant* to my 
>ends.  A computer has no ends (that are not assigned to it) and hence is 
>uncompletely unmotivated to jump ahead of the process and say, "aha, I 
>see where this is going!"

These are just unsupported claims.  You have to say *why* you think 
computers have these limitations to be convincing.
