5 ms·

Seriously, why won't this 2+ decade old argument die? It's sophomoric and picked apart in second year cognitive systems classes by 19 year old children. It gla

Seriously, why won't this 2+ decade old argument die? It's sophomoric and picked apart in second year cognitive systems classes by 19 year old children. It glaringly misunderstands and misrepresents. If people are genuinely interested in AI they should take a basic course in it at university or pick up a real book on the subject.

Esspe 17y ago
In my opinion, this argument have existential consequences: either it's not possible to emulate mind on turing machine or we don't have qualia and consciousness (it's just the illusion, that we have). And i don't like the latter.
- shib71 17y ago
  And the former isn't a particularly useful conclusion. The results of doing the research have a lot of potential. What potential does not trying have?
- ThomPete 17y ago
  The argument is so flawed I don't even know where to beging. It's the room that is conscious not the person. Of course the person can't speak Chinese. Neither can the neuron in my brain.
  - foldr 17y ago
    That's the "systems reply", which Searle addressed in his original article. So I'm not sure which argument you're talking about.
- camccann 17y ago
  we don't have qualia and consciousness (it's just the illusion, that we have) An illusion experienced by whom? What's the difference between having an illusion of consciousness and having the real thing?
  - jerf 17y ago
    "What's the difference between having an illusion of consciousness and having the real thing?" Primarily, the word "illusion". At this point, having read up on these issues for a while, anytime I see the word "illusion" now I tend to just shut the book/leave the webpage/whatever. Have you ever, once, seen someone sit down and say what they mean by "illusion", or give a way of telling you how to distinguish between "illusion" or "reality"? Maybe you have (no sarcasm intended), but I've never seen it, and without that the word basically just marks someone who is trying to sound insightful without doing the hard work of actually being insightful and saying something without leaving an enormous linguistic void right in the center of the argument.
    - DrJokepu 17y ago
      Whether consciousness is only illusion is of no consequence. This path of thoughts (just like Berkeley's subjective idealism or its modern form, the Matrix movie) ain't leading anywhere (besides madness) hence it can be classified as solipsism. In my opinion, what matters that you experience consciousness, life, happiness or sadness. Have great meals, love the people who love you, do cool stuff as a 'hacker'. Your life will be as 'real' as it could get, whether it's an illusion or not.
- Grinnmarr 17y ago
  It's not just your opinion ;) This argument is about the nature of consciousness more than anything. It fights for a "subjective ontology" of the mental and is not easily dismissed as the earlier commentator would like to believe. The rapidity of upvotes and apparent sympathy to that claim by members of this community is certainly understandable given that the stance is anti-verificationist and presents problems for a purely scientific explanation of consciousness, but imho at our current level of intelligence/intellectual evolution a purely scientific explanation is horribly dehumanizing and insufficient.
- radu_floricica 17y ago
  Take a look at "Society of mind" by Marvin Minsky. We already understand pretty well that the mind is a colony of mostly independent system, working in various configurations. Here's the first chapter: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/minsky07/minsky07_index.html http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/minsky07/minsky07_index.html As far as I'm concerned, qualia is just a fancy synonym for "soul". I don't miss it one bit. Consciousness on the other hand, that we have. Only it turns out to be a more elusive concept then we once thought.
- gphil 17y ago
  Huh? How do you get from: (1) It is possible to emulate the mind on a Turing Machine. to: (2) We don't have qualia or consciousness. In my opinion, there's nothing about (1) that entails (2).
  - dhume 17y ago
    According to the "Chinese room" argument, a machine is not capable of genuinely understanding a language (since it is only looking up and applying transformation rules). It is generally believed that a human can, so that would mean a human mind cannot be fully emulated by a Turing machine. The only alternative seems to be that a human actually has the same limitation as a Turing machine (non-consciousness) and does not really understand language either.
ThomPete 17y ago
Because there are still too many Analytical Philosophers out there (Kuhn is the exception)
- philwelch 17y ago
  Trust me, analytical philosophers are the only thing protecting us from the likes of Hegel and Derrida. The purpose of philosophy is to protect us from bad philosophy.
  - telemachos 17y ago
    > The purpose of philosophy is to protect us from bad philosophy. Nicely put. I like Wittgenstein's way of putting it as well, "What is your aim in philosophy?--To shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle." (Philosophical Investigations 309)
- ThomPete 17y ago
  philwelch So you prefér circular argumentation?
- telemachos 17y ago
  In at least one pretty important sense, Thomas Kuhn isn't "out there" any more. He's been dead since 1996.
andrewcooke 17y ago
it won't "die" for the same reason that it's still used at university - both because it raise some interesting issues and because it played an important part in the historical debate over ai. also, if you actually read the link you'll see that it's placed in context, with the "systems reply" explained in detail.
- dgreensp 17y ago
  As long as people can put it in context. To a software person who's given AI some thought, the holes in Searle's argument are glaring. I had a very awkward conversation in college with a philosophy student who had just been taught it and was taking it very seriously; I guess they have a lot of reverence for Great Thinkers who hand down Deep Insights, whereas to me this guy Searle sounded like an imbecile. Despite my initial horror at someone's taking the Chinese Room argument at face value, I realize it raises interesting questions about the chasm between AI's starting point (e.g. playing chess with S-expressions) and real human-like intelligence. I think we have more perspective on the problem these days for countless reasons -- work on understanding how subsystems in the brain work, being able to build or simulate neuron-like systems, applying powerful computers to a wide variety of problems. The big questions that remain are ones like whether a human brain can be simulated; how brain-like a machine would have to be to "understand" things -- self-aware? neural-network-like? embodied? -- and to what extent constructs like language reflect deep structure of the mind (i.e. human firmware we have to reverse engineer and duplicate) rather than universal logical constructs.
  - foldr 17y ago
    >I guess they have a lot of reverence for Great Thinkers who hand down Deep Insights, whereas to me this guy Searle sounded like an imbecile. Have you ever read the Chinese room article? It's pretty clear if you read it that Searle isn't an imbecile. The vast majority of "refutations" of his argument simply miss his point entirely. (Which is basically, "Why on Earth would you think that merely performing the same computations as a human brain could cause conscious experiences?") > I guess they have a lot of reverence for Great Thinkers who hand down Deep Insights Really? I've never met any philosophy students who fit that description.
deleted 17y ago
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Esspe 17y ago

In my opinion, this argument have existential consequences: either it's not possible to emulate mind on turing machine or we don't have qualia and consciousness (it's just the illusion, that we have). And i don't like the latter.

shib71 17y ago
And the former isn't a particularly useful conclusion. The results of doing the research have a lot of potential. What potential does not trying have?
ThomPete 17y ago
The argument is so flawed I don't even know where to beging. It's the room that is conscious not the person. Of course the person can't speak Chinese. Neither can the neuron in my brain.
- foldr 17y ago
  That's the "systems reply", which Searle addressed in his original article. So I'm not sure which argument you're talking about.
camccann 17y ago
we don't have qualia and consciousness (it's just the illusion, that we have) An illusion experienced by whom? What's the difference between having an illusion of consciousness and having the real thing?
- jerf 17y ago
  "What's the difference between having an illusion of consciousness and having the real thing?" Primarily, the word "illusion". At this point, having read up on these issues for a while, anytime I see the word "illusion" now I tend to just shut the book/leave the webpage/whatever. Have you ever, once, seen someone sit down and say what they mean by "illusion", or give a way of telling you how to distinguish between "illusion" or "reality"? Maybe you have (no sarcasm intended), but I've never seen it, and without that the word basically just marks someone who is trying to sound insightful without doing the hard work of actually being insightful and saying something without leaving an enormous linguistic void right in the center of the argument.
  - DrJokepu 17y ago
    Whether consciousness is only illusion is of no consequence. This path of thoughts (just like Berkeley's subjective idealism or its modern form, the Matrix movie) ain't leading anywhere (besides madness) hence it can be classified as solipsism. In my opinion, what matters that you experience consciousness, life, happiness or sadness. Have great meals, love the people who love you, do cool stuff as a 'hacker'. Your life will be as 'real' as it could get, whether it's an illusion or not.
Grinnmarr 17y ago
It's not just your opinion ;) This argument is about the nature of consciousness more than anything. It fights for a "subjective ontology" of the mental and is not easily dismissed as the earlier commentator would like to believe. The rapidity of upvotes and apparent sympathy to that claim by members of this community is certainly understandable given that the stance is anti-verificationist and presents problems for a purely scientific explanation of consciousness, but imho at our current level of intelligence/intellectual evolution a purely scientific explanation is horribly dehumanizing and insufficient.
radu_floricica 17y ago
Take a look at "Society of mind" by Marvin Minsky. We already understand pretty well that the mind is a colony of mostly independent system, working in various configurations. Here's the first chapter: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/minsky07/minsky07_index.html http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/minsky07/minsky07_index.html As far as I'm concerned, qualia is just a fancy synonym for "soul". I don't miss it one bit. Consciousness on the other hand, that we have. Only it turns out to be a more elusive concept then we once thought.
gphil 17y ago
Huh? How do you get from: (1) It is possible to emulate the mind on a Turing Machine. to: (2) We don't have qualia or consciousness. In my opinion, there's nothing about (1) that entails (2).
- dhume 17y ago
  According to the "Chinese room" argument, a machine is not capable of genuinely understanding a language (since it is only looking up and applying transformation rules). It is generally believed that a human can, so that would mean a human mind cannot be fully emulated by a Turing machine. The only alternative seems to be that a human actually has the same limitation as a Turing machine (non-consciousness) and does not really understand language either.

ThomPete 17y ago

Because there are still too many Analytical Philosophers out there (Kuhn is the exception)

philwelch 17y ago
Trust me, analytical philosophers are the only thing protecting us from the likes of Hegel and Derrida. The purpose of philosophy is to protect us from bad philosophy.
- telemachos 17y ago
  > The purpose of philosophy is to protect us from bad philosophy. Nicely put. I like Wittgenstein's way of putting it as well, "What is your aim in philosophy?--To shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle." (Philosophical Investigations 309)
ThomPete 17y ago
philwelch So you prefér circular argumentation?
telemachos 17y ago
In at least one pretty important sense, Thomas Kuhn isn't "out there" any more. He's been dead since 1996.

andrewcooke 17y ago

it won't "die" for the same reason that it's still used at university - both because it raise some interesting issues and because it played an important part in the historical debate over ai. also, if you actually read the link you'll see that it's placed in context, with the "systems reply" explained in detail.

dgreensp 17y ago
As long as people can put it in context. To a software person who's given AI some thought, the holes in Searle's argument are glaring. I had a very awkward conversation in college with a philosophy student who had just been taught it and was taking it very seriously; I guess they have a lot of reverence for Great Thinkers who hand down Deep Insights, whereas to me this guy Searle sounded like an imbecile. Despite my initial horror at someone's taking the Chinese Room argument at face value, I realize it raises interesting questions about the chasm between AI's starting point (e.g. playing chess with S-expressions) and real human-like intelligence. I think we have more perspective on the problem these days for countless reasons -- work on understanding how subsystems in the brain work, being able to build or simulate neuron-like systems, applying powerful computers to a wide variety of problems. The big questions that remain are ones like whether a human brain can be simulated; how brain-like a machine would have to be to "understand" things -- self-aware? neural-network-like? embodied? -- and to what extent constructs like language reflect deep structure of the mind (i.e. human firmware we have to reverse engineer and duplicate) rather than universal logical constructs.
- foldr 17y ago
  >I guess they have a lot of reverence for Great Thinkers who hand down Deep Insights, whereas to me this guy Searle sounded like an imbecile. Have you ever read the Chinese room article? It's pretty clear if you read it that Searle isn't an imbecile. The vast majority of "refutations" of his argument simply miss his point entirely. (Which is basically, "Why on Earth would you think that merely performing the same computations as a human brain could cause conscious experiences?") > I guess they have a lot of reverence for Great Thinkers who hand down Deep Insights Really? I've never met any philosophy students who fit that description.

deleted 17y ago

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