[Wittrs] Re: The Alleged 4th Premise: Is the CRA Valid?
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2010 19:56:23 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Gordon Swobe <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
> --- On Wed, 4/7/10, SWM <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> > Searle doesn't invoke any real world empirical experimental
> > studies
>
> He certainly could do a real world empirical experimental study! As far as I
> know nobody has bothered to do the experiment only because everyone in his
> right mind knows ahead of time how it would turn out.
>
Until such a real world empirical study is done by someone (there are many
supporters of the Searlean argument, after all), you cannot say it is doable.
If you think it is, though, then why just not do it yourself to show that it
is? With all the scientific researchers around these days and all the stuff
they're doing, why do you think no one has done it? In fact, the whole point is
that it isn't doable which is why it's called a "thought experiment".
> But let us say that you and I cannot see how it will turn out. We go ahead
> and build a real Chinese Room to see what happens. We'll put you and your
> trillion or so educated brain cells inside it along with a bunch of rules for
> manipulating Chinese symbols according to their shapes, just as in Searle's
> thought experiment.
>
> There you stand in the room, you and your trillion educated and conscious
> brain cells all connected together in a wonderful parallel sort of way. You
> have everything we could ever hope for a strong AI computer to ever possibly
> have, and now you implement a syntactic program for conversing in Chinese.
>
> Yes/No question:
>
> Do you think you will understand the symbols, Stuart?
>
> -gts
You continue to miss the point, Gordon. I never claimed that I or anyone
playing the CPU in the room would understand. In fact, I have repeatedly agreed
that the man in the room doesn't understand. The question, rather, is what does
it mean to understand and what is the locus of the understanding in the Chinese
Room thought experiment?
You just don't get it while continuing to imagine that a "thought experiment"
counts as real world empirical evidence of anything.
SWM
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