4 ms·

> does the person just doing a "hash-table lookup" on "the right answers to pre-prosed questions" actually understand. The person doesn't, but the (person + ha

> does the person just doing a "hash-table lookup" on "the right answers to pre-prosed questions" actually understand. The person doesn't, but the (person + hash-table) system does. This is not weird - presumably whoever wrote the hash-table did understand Chinese. The whole point of using a room for this thought experiment is that we're no longer talking about a person, we're talking about a "machine" consisting of a person, a hash-table, and some kind of input/output system. The hypothetical computer is the same. The CPU does not understand Chinese, but the whole computer as a system does, because part of that system is actual knowledge that came from someone that understands Chinese. When people ask if a computer is intelligent, they are not asking about one particular component, they're asking about the computer as a whole. Just like when you talk about a human's knowledge and abilities, you don't ask about particular sectors of their brain, you ask about the person as a whole.

mensetmanusman 5y ago
The person is frivolous in the Chinese room though, would you say (robot + hash table) understands Chinese? I.e. GTP-3 understands English…
- burkaman 5y ago
  GPT-3 isn't there yet, but yes, a robot with the book from the Chinese Room experiment would form a system that understands Chinese. I agree that the person is frivolous, that's why it's strange that Searle asks whether the person in his thought experiment understands Chinese. That's irrelevant, what matters is whether the room as a whole does, and clearly it does.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
colinmhayes 5y ago
I'm not sure. Say the person has translations tables for english and chinese. If the second tester asked in English "what did you talk about with the last person?" would the man be able to answer? Clearly the man + hash table speaks chinese, but I don't think that's the same as understanding it.
- burkaman 5y ago
  That depends on the premise of this new thought experiment. Are the program-books allowed to include side effects of writing down records of interactions, and take those records as input? If not, it's not a fair comparison with a computer. If so, then yes I think the room could be able to answer. Why did I have to add something, if the room already understood Chinese before? Because we're essentially adding a second program now and trying to share understanding between them. The room did understand Chinese, but that understanding will not be accessible to a new component unless we design with that in mind. An analogy would be asking a person "which muscles did you use to digest that food?" Clearly some part of the human-system knows this, because it activated the right muscles and successfully digested the food, but the part of the system that hears and responds to English doesn't have access to that knowledge. We would need to redesign the system and programs in order to share understanding between these different parts of the system. I realize we were using the term "hash-table" in this thread and what I'm talking about wouldn't be possible with just tables, but such a simple program is not a requirement for the thought experiment. The idea is we just have some black box function that takes inputs and produces outputs and we don't know how it works.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

The person is frivolous in the Chinese room though, would you say (robot + hash table) understands Chinese? I.e. GTP-3 understands English…

burkaman 5y ago
GPT-3 isn't there yet, but yes, a robot with the book from the Chinese Room experiment would form a system that understands Chinese. I agree that the person is frivolous, that's why it's strange that Searle asks whether the person in his thought experiment understands Chinese. That's irrelevant, what matters is whether the room as a whole does, and clearly it does.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

colinmhayes 5y ago

I'm not sure. Say the person has translations tables for english and chinese. If the second tester asked in English "what did you talk about with the last person?" would the man be able to answer? Clearly the man + hash table speaks chinese, but I don't think that's the same as understanding it.

burkaman 5y ago
That depends on the premise of this new thought experiment. Are the program-books allowed to include side effects of writing down records of interactions, and take those records as input? If not, it's not a fair comparison with a computer. If so, then yes I think the room could be able to answer. Why did I have to add something, if the room already understood Chinese before? Because we're essentially adding a second program now and trying to share understanding between them. The room did understand Chinese, but that understanding will not be accessible to a new component unless we design with that in mind. An analogy would be asking a person "which muscles did you use to digest that food?" Clearly some part of the human-system knows this, because it activated the right muscles and successfully digested the food, but the part of the system that hears and responds to English doesn't have access to that knowledge. We would need to redesign the system and programs in order to share understanding between these different parts of the system. I realize we were using the term "hash-table" in this thread and what I'm talking about wouldn't be possible with just tables, but such a simple program is not a requirement for the thought experiment. The idea is we just have some black box function that takes inputs and produces outputs and we don't know how it works.