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This is the funniest refutation of the Chinese Room argument that I’ve seen. Note that at the end, it’s still the case that none of these people can recognize a

by wrs 4y ago

This is the funniest refutation of the Chinese Room argument that I’ve seen. Note that at the end, it’s still the case that none of these people can recognize a cat.

pringk02 4y ago
Doesn't that mean it supports the Chinese room argument? I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. (also, popular conciousness forgets that technically the Chinese Room argument is only arguing against the much narrower, and now philosophically unfashionable, "Hard AI" stance as it was held in the 70s)
- wrs 4y ago
  I understand the Chinese Room argument to be that because the human in the room doesn’t understand Chinese, the system doesn’t understand Chinese. In this case, none of the humans can recognize cats, but the collective can.
  - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
    Thats not the Chinese Room argument. The argument says just because a system processes X doesn't imply it has consciousness of X.
    - wrs 4y ago
      The flaw is the unsupported assertion that the whole system being conscious of X depends on a part of the system being conscious of X. The same assertion would fail here in the same way.
      - mensetmanusman 4y ago
        At these levels of discussion everything is asserted as axioms to see what the consequences are. If a human isn’t conscious of Chinese, but the arrangement of paper rules is, one would have to assert that paper + human is conscious.
      - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
        Are you talking about access consciousness or phenomenal consciousness?
- tasty_freeze 4y ago
  > the Chinese Room argument is only arguing against the much narrower, and now philosophically unfashionable, "Hard AI" stance as it was held in the 70s Searle has stood behind his argument in the 70s, but in every decade since then too. The main failure is that most people fundamentally don't believe they are mechanistic. If one believe in dualism, then it easy to attribute various mental states to that dualism, and of course a computer neural network cannot experience qualia like humans do. I don't believe in a soul, and thus believe that a computer neural network, probably not today's models but a future one that is large enough and has the right recurrent topology, will be able to have qualia similar to what humans and animals experience.
  - pringk02 4y ago
    Searle's argument in the Chinese Room is only that passing the Turing Test isn't enough to prove evidence of Mind (capital 'm' to distinguish it at the philosophical jargon term, and all it entails). He does hold the stance that he doesn't think Computationalism (in the style of Dennet) is correct. I'm not sure if he personally feels the Chinese Room argument refutes that stance as a whole, but I believe the general consensus is that, as originally formulated in his essay, it does not stand as a total refutation of Computationalism, without reading between the lines or squinting your eyes a bit. Searle does have a wider stance that he does not think computations can have things equivalent to mental states, especially intentionality. Obviously there is a whole separate debate to his correctness there, but I'm skipping over it to just discuss the Chinese Room That passing the Turing Test is not enough to exhibit evidence of Mind is not that controversial today. GPT-4 could easily pass the Turing Test as it was originally formulated. There are not many out there that think it possesses conciousness or intentionality or any mental states at all really. We'd generally agree now that passing the Turing Test is only a step towards creating an actual artificial mind (how large or small a step is still up for debate). Anyway, all this is a tangent as I still don't understand why the original commenter feels this article provides a refutation of the Chinese Room argument when it seems (to me) to reinforce it. I'm just curious on that perspective and was interested in hearing more.
    - wrs 4y ago

by wrs 4y ago

This is the funniest refutation of the Chinese Room argument that I’ve seen. Note that at the end, it’s still the case that none of these people can recognize a cat.

pringk02 4y ago

Doesn't that mean it supports the Chinese room argument? I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. (also, popular conciousness forgets that technically the Chinese Room argument is only arguing against the much narrower, and now philosophically unfashionable, "Hard AI" stance as it was held in the 70s)

wrs 4y ago
I understand the Chinese Room argument to be that because the human in the room doesn’t understand Chinese, the system doesn’t understand Chinese. In this case, none of the humans can recognize cats, but the collective can.
- cscurmudgeon 4y ago
  Thats not the Chinese Room argument. The argument says just because a system processes X doesn't imply it has consciousness of X.
  - wrs 4y ago
    The flaw is the unsupported assertion that the whole system being conscious of X depends on a part of the system being conscious of X. The same assertion would fail here in the same way.
    - mensetmanusman 4y ago
      At these levels of discussion everything is asserted as axioms to see what the consequences are. If a human isn’t conscious of Chinese, but the arrangement of paper rules is, one would have to assert that paper + human is conscious.
    - cscurmudgeon 4y ago
      Are you talking about access consciousness or phenomenal consciousness?
tasty_freeze 4y ago
> the Chinese Room argument is only arguing against the much narrower, and now philosophically unfashionable, "Hard AI" stance as it was held in the 70s Searle has stood behind his argument in the 70s, but in every decade since then too. The main failure is that most people fundamentally don't believe they are mechanistic. If one believe in dualism, then it easy to attribute various mental states to that dualism, and of course a computer neural network cannot experience qualia like humans do. I don't believe in a soul, and thus believe that a computer neural network, probably not today's models but a future one that is large enough and has the right recurrent topology, will be able to have qualia similar to what humans and animals experience.
- pringk02 4y ago
  Searle's argument in the Chinese Room is only that passing the Turing Test isn't enough to prove evidence of Mind (capital 'm' to distinguish it at the philosophical jargon term, and all it entails). He does hold the stance that he doesn't think Computationalism (in the style of Dennet) is correct. I'm not sure if he personally feels the Chinese Room argument refutes that stance as a whole, but I believe the general consensus is that, as originally formulated in his essay, it does not stand as a total refutation of Computationalism, without reading between the lines or squinting your eyes a bit. Searle does have a wider stance that he does not think computations can have things equivalent to mental states, especially intentionality. Obviously there is a whole separate debate to his correctness there, but I'm skipping over it to just discuss the Chinese Room That passing the Turing Test is not enough to exhibit evidence of Mind is not that controversial today. GPT-4 could easily pass the Turing Test as it was originally formulated. There are not many out there that think it possesses conciousness or intentionality or any mental states at all really. We'd generally agree now that passing the Turing Test is only a step towards creating an actual artificial mind (how large or small a step is still up for debate). Anyway, all this is a tangent as I still don't understand why the original commenter feels this article provides a refutation of the Chinese Room argument when it seems (to me) to reinforce it. I'm just curious on that perspective and was interested in hearing more.
  - wrs 4y ago