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As a non-philosopher, this argument seems flawed in that one could argue the computer in the chinese room "understands" chinese. The Turing test, as I see it, w
by wrkronmiller 8y ago
As a non-philosopher, this argument seems flawed in that one could argue the computer in the chinese room "understands" chinese. The Turing test, as I see it, would metaphorically ask if someone or something in the chinese room understood chinese and you could argue the answer is yes.
- nathias 8y agonot the computer but the room itself
- wrkronmiller 8y agoPerhaps it would have been better to phrase it as "an 'understanding' of chinese exists in the room"
- raincom 8y agoYou are right, if you add quotes to the word 'understood' in the second sentence. So, it is an issue of what understanding in the context of humans, in what way this is different from what understanding in the context of computers/symbolic language is.
- gmueckl 8y agoThis highlights how fuzzy terms like intelligence and understanding are. How exactly is human understanding/reasoning different to that of a dog, a monkey or a computer? How do you value each one of these? Should an animal be valued higher than than a constructed machine that is otherwise identical? What about humans and machines?
- lottin 8y agoDoes a light bulb know that it is on or off? That it exists? Normally, in order to answer these questions we would look at the empirical evidence, and the evidence in favour that inanimate objects have self-awareness is completely non-existent. On the other hand, the evidence that animals have self-awareness is overwhelmingly strong. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that inanimate objects aren't self-aware but that people and animals are. (And of course this also means that is NOT reasonable to conclude otherwise.)
- ForHackernews 8y agoSee also: https://coronaradiata.net/2012/12/24/does-a-thermostat-have-consciousness/ https://coronaradiata.net/2012/12/24/does-a-thermostat-have-...
- gmueckl 8y agoWe attribute self-awareness (or other attributes) based on the results of behavioral tests that we perform on the test subject. Assume, for the sake of the argument, that I built a machine that exhibits the same kind of self-awareness as an elephant. So it would recognize itself in a mirror test etc... So if it manages to pass all these tests, is it self-aware? According to Ernst Mach, two things that are indistinguishable by observation are actually equal. This is essentially a part of the Chinese Room Argument: how can you draw a distinction between two things, when you cannot observe it?
- mcguire 8y agoThe Turing test is an attempt to define intelligence operationally, from the outside, as a black box. Searle's argument is that the test is ineffective, since he is hypothetically satisfying it without "intelligence". Unfortunately, his argument applies to a human being as well, so...
- roenxi 8y agoIndeed. In a lot of practical cases with humans we have people who talk a good talk but are unable to put the ideas they verbalise into practice. We don't say "this person doesn't understand [the language]", we say "this person doesn't understand [the thing they are talking about]". It seems reasonable to say the Chinese room has a perfect grasp of Chinese, it just happens to be pretty stupid and probably not reliable. It would be interesting to do a study of a group like judges or politicians and compare them to a hypothetical Chinese Room. It seems likely that they would often need to speak briefly on subjects outside their actual understanding, but they clearly have a deep understanding of the language.