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The analogy is supposed to emphasize that AI proponents (and others) presuppose there's a fully materialistic explanation for consciousness. There's no wizard b
by ForHackernews 8y ago
The analogy is supposed to emphasize that AI proponents (and others) presuppose there's a fully materialistic explanation for consciousness. There's no wizard behind the curtain: it's all just deep neural networks ("boxes and books").
- viraptor 8y agoIt could be a weaker argument: One can theoretically make a fully materialistic device acting in a way indistinguishable from consciousness. Which still preserves the question: if you can reliably fake knowing Chinese, do you know Chinese?
- joe_the_user 8y agoYeah, the thing about the argument is it mixes together two close but distinct arguments in a way that makes it harder to argue with either. On the one hand, there's the implication that because it's just books and boxes & whatever, it can't do the impressive feat of speaking Chinese. On the other hand, there's the implication that if it is a "room" or "computer" or something doing the speaking of Chinese, it can't "really" be doing it because it doesn't have the spark of life or a soul or whatever magic one might name. And because the argument has a bit of both these claims to it, it is hard to address since a proponent can go back and forth between them. That this argument was taken seriously by philosophers was rather disheartening to me when I discovered this, when it became obvious there really wasn't any more there than a colorful (but not particular relevant) metaphor.
- int_19h 8y agoYes, and then the analogy is used to refute this notion through a thinly disguised "but it is obvious! [that this isn't real]" fallacy (the fallacy is that it is not at all obvious that the Chinese Room is not sapient).
- ForHackernews 8y agoYes, that's one way out: claiming that the Books+Person Room-System is itself sentient. You can (and philosophers have!) make that case, but it seems very counter-intuitive to the way we experience conscientious as a unitary, embodied being.
- joe_the_user 8y agoThe things can move just through the application of chemicals or air-pressure is counter-intuitive. It seems like you've got a philosophy that is taking a person through a series of reasoning based stringing together back intuitions and ending up in the same place religion takes us.
- ForHackernews 8y agoSure, I guess. Most of the responses in this thread are computer people trying to skirt around the "hard problem" of consciousness: http://www.consc.net/papers/facing.html http://www.consc.net/papers/facing.html If you want to claim that what your brain does is basically a more complicated version of what your laptop does, then you're free to make that case, but I don't think you honestly believe it yourself. You do recognize your own inner life.
- joe_the_user 8y agoWell, while I'd both disagree with "hard problem" arguments and not see them as interesting, at least "hard problem" proponents will say directly there's some magic in humans that a computer can't have. Indeed, the "philosophical zombie" idea shows the magic is so transcendent that no evidence can determine whether a person has the magic (of qualia) or whether they are a dreaded Zombie. In contrast, the Chinese Room argument jumps between "hard problem" metaphysics and the appearance of a materialistic perspective.
- int_19h 8y agoI recognize my inner life and consciousness, of course, but how and why would that preclude believing that they're manifestations of something that is only quantitatively different from my laptop? Quantity does matter.