5 ms·

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

by tantalor 5y ago

9dev 5y ago
Thank you for the link, that's very interesting and a neat thought experiment to highlight what I meant.
- Smaug123 5y ago
  Does it highlight what you meant? I'm not at all sure it does, since I consider a Chinese room to be conscious (being an execution of a faithful encoding of the consciousness that created the room).
  - DonaldFisk 5y ago
    We might be on opposite sides of the Chalmers/Dennett divide, but we don't know how consciousness (as opposed to human-level intelligence) arises. Here's my reasoning for why the Chinese Room isn't (phenomenally) conscious: http://fmjlang.co.uk/blog/ChineseRoom.html http://fmjlang.co.uk/blog/ChineseRoom.html
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      You make, in my opinion, the same mistake as Searle does, which is to take for granted that humans are 'more' than a system of interacting components in a way that no other system can be. The system of the room may well experience and understand color (or consciousness) the same way the system of your human body and brain do, we have no way of saying otherwise. Like Searle, your argument relies on the intuition that humans are a specially privileged arrangement of molecules in the universe.
      - DonaldFisk 5y ago
        Understanding is different from experiencing. This is where I side with Chalmers and not Dennett. I accept that the system would have some understanding of colours (as would the person in the room - notably, Knut Nordby had a far better understanding of colour vision than most people despite only seeing in monochrome). But I am skeptical that the system experiences colours. Someone with normal colour vision is able to experience colours because they have cones on their retina which is somehow linked to their consciousness (probably by means of neurons further into their brains). Achromatopes, including the person inside the room, don't. They experience only different shades of grey. But they are able to tell what the colours are, by means of a set of three differently coloured filters. Do you mean that the filters experience colours as qualia but are unable to pass on this experience to the achromatope, or do you mean that the system must experience qualia simply because it behaves (to an outside observer) as if it sees in colour? I suppose it boils down to this: is the experience of colour additional information to the knowledge of colour?
        int_19h 5y ago
        The experience of color is ultimately a bunch of neurons firing in a certain way. The neurons themselves don't experience anything - the entire assembly does, as a whole. From that perspective, it's not clear why the Chinese room can't experience colors, even if individual people-"neurons" only transmit the underlying signals like RGB measurements.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
        The cones in your eye are essentially the same as the color filters, they respond to certain wavelengths and not others. It is the neurons in our brains that interpret what those signals mean, as the person in the room does. It is doubtful that any single neuron has an experience of color as we would, and neither would the cone, but in aggregate the system does. There is no component that you can point to and say "that's the part that experiences the color", the same way as you can't for the room. It is only our intuition that 'inanimate objects' aren't conscious (and that people are!) that makes your's and Searle's arguments appear reasonable.
        5y ago
visarga 5y ago
I think it's a flawed experiment. Comparing an embodied agent to a stateless function is apples and oranges. A category error.
cypherpunks01 5y ago
"Searle asserts that there is no essential difference between the roles of the computer and himself in the experiment.. 'I don't speak a word of Chinese,' he points out." This seems to be confusing multiple concepts. In the experiment, he is clearly just one component of the room, other components being the rules, the filing cabinets, etc. Of course, none of the single components of the room speak Chinese, but the room clearly does because it is doing just that. None of the individual neurons in our brains "understand" English but the system as a whole does. The crux of it is, what is really meant by the word "understanding".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

9dev 5y ago

Thank you for the link, that's very interesting and a neat thought experiment to highlight what I meant.

Smaug123 5y ago
Does it highlight what you meant? I'm not at all sure it does, since I consider a Chinese room to be conscious (being an execution of a faithful encoding of the consciousness that created the room).
- DonaldFisk 5y ago
  We might be on opposite sides of the Chalmers/Dennett divide, but we don't know how consciousness (as opposed to human-level intelligence) arises. Here's my reasoning for why the Chinese Room isn't (phenomenally) conscious: http://fmjlang.co.uk/blog/ChineseRoom.html http://fmjlang.co.uk/blog/ChineseRoom.html
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    You make, in my opinion, the same mistake as Searle does, which is to take for granted that humans are 'more' than a system of interacting components in a way that no other system can be. The system of the room may well experience and understand color (or consciousness) the same way the system of your human body and brain do, we have no way of saying otherwise. Like Searle, your argument relies on the intuition that humans are a specially privileged arrangement of molecules in the universe.
    - DonaldFisk 5y ago
      Understanding is different from experiencing. This is where I side with Chalmers and not Dennett. I accept that the system would have some understanding of colours (as would the person in the room - notably, Knut Nordby had a far better understanding of colour vision than most people despite only seeing in monochrome). But I am skeptical that the system experiences colours. Someone with normal colour vision is able to experience colours because they have cones on their retina which is somehow linked to their consciousness (probably by means of neurons further into their brains). Achromatopes, including the person inside the room, don't. They experience only different shades of grey. But they are able to tell what the colours are, by means of a set of three differently coloured filters. Do you mean that the filters experience colours as qualia but are unable to pass on this experience to the achromatope, or do you mean that the system must experience qualia simply because it behaves (to an outside observer) as if it sees in colour? I suppose it boils down to this: is the experience of colour additional information to the knowledge of colour?
      - int_19h 5y ago
        The experience of color is ultimately a bunch of neurons firing in a certain way. The neurons themselves don't experience anything - the entire assembly does, as a whole. From that perspective, it's not clear why the Chinese room can't experience colors, even if individual people-"neurons" only transmit the underlying signals like RGB measurements.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
        The cones in your eye are essentially the same as the color filters, they respond to certain wavelengths and not others. It is the neurons in our brains that interpret what those signals mean, as the person in the room does. It is doubtful that any single neuron has an experience of color as we would, and neither would the cone, but in aggregate the system does. There is no component that you can point to and say "that's the part that experiences the color", the same way as you can't for the room. It is only our intuition that 'inanimate objects' aren't conscious (and that people are!) that makes your's and Searle's arguments appear reasonable.
        5y ago

visarga 5y ago

I think it's a flawed experiment. Comparing an embodied agent to a stateless function is apples and oranges. A category error.

cypherpunks01 5y ago

"Searle asserts that there is no essential difference between the roles of the computer and himself in the experiment.. 'I don't speak a word of Chinese,' he points out." This seems to be confusing multiple concepts. In the experiment, he is clearly just one component of the room, other components being the rules, the filing cabinets, etc. Of course, none of the single components of the room speak Chinese, but the room clearly does because it is doing just that. None of the individual neurons in our brains "understand" English but the system as a whole does. The crux of it is, what is really meant by the word "understanding".