Talk:Chinese room/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Many/Most/Nearly All

Here are two sentences from the article

1. Some proponents of artificial intelligence would conclude that the computer "understands" Chinese
2. Stevan Harnad argues that Searle's depictions of strong AI can be reformulated as "recognizable tenets of computationalism, a position (unlike 'strong AI') that is actually held by many thinkers, and hence one worth refuting."

Both sentences are making claims that strong AI has been somehow discredited or abandoned by most "thinkers". I don't see any evidence for this. But it is an opinion which both sentences are implicitly pushing by their phrasing. There is no counterbalance in the article, and the first sentence occurs in a general expository context, and should be rephrased, I think, to comply with undue weight.

The first sentence should read "nearly all computer scientists", because right now, if a machine actually passed a Turing test, nearly all computer scientists would admit it was thinking. The second sentence I think should be qualified somehow by noting that Harnad is talking about philosophers, and that within scientific fields (cognitive science and computer science) computationalism and strong AI are conflated, and both are still majority positions.Likebox (talk) 23:01, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that you're correct that "nearly all computer scientists" agree with Strong AI. If you saw a machine pass a Turing test, and then someone turned to you and asked if you thought it had "mind" with "consciousness" just like ours, would you agree right away? I think most (thoughtful) people would say either (1) "I'd need to know something about the program before I'll agree that it's conscious." (I.e. the Turing test is an insufficient measure of consciousness) or (2) "Who cares if it's conscious? It's unbelievably impressive!" (I.e., "consciousness" and "mind" are either meaningless or irrelevant.)

I don't think most computer scientists claim you can use a Turing test to uncover a "mind". However, all of them agree (and Searle as well) that you can use AI technology to solve problems. I don't think computer scientists spend a whole lot of time thinking about "minds" in any case. Which is Harnad's point: Searle should have attacked Hillary Putnam and Jerry Fodor directly, rather than picking on innocent computer scientists like Roger Schank, who never claimed his programs "actually understood" or "had ~~minds" in the first place. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 06:12, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I would immediately say it was conscious, without any further data. I believe that is true of 90% of computer scientists, maybe 80% of mathematicians. You need polling, I suppose.Likebox (talk) 13:25, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

The question would have to be asked carefully: "If a computer program was able to convince you that it was thinking, after you asked many many probing questions over many hourse, days or weeks, with intent to show that it was a program and not a person, would you say that this program has a mind, in the same way as any person?"

I think that the answer to this question would be a resounding "yes" by 90% CS, 80% math, 70% physics/chem, 50% bio, 20% phil. Turing was a mathematician who founded computer science, and his papers are well accepted in those fields.Likebox (talk) 13:29, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Don't include Turing. Turing was smart enough to realize that his test could never prove if a machine had a "mind" or "consciousness" (i.e. subjective conscious experience). Read Turing 1950, under "The Argument from Consciousness". He gives the "other minds" response, which is that, if the Turing test is insufficient, then we must also agree that we can't tell if other people are conscious either. He suggests that "instead of arguing continually over this point it is usual to have the polite convention that everyone thinks". The Turing test only proves that the machine appears to be as conscious as any other person. This doesn't prove it is conscious. Just that it's "close enough".

Turing knew that he hadn't solved this problem. He writes "I do not wish to give the impression that I think there is no mystery about consciousness." He just thinks it's irrelevant.

By the way, I agree with Turing. You can't tell if anything has conscious experience, except yourself, without looking inside the machine (or brain). We would need to carefully study the brain, understand exactly the physical structures and processes that give rise to this "feeling" or "experience" we call "consciousness". Once we understand what consciousness is (i.e. the "neural correlates of consciousness"), then we can generalize it to machines. It goes beyond behavior. The internal structure matters.

I also agree with Norvig and Russell that consciousness is not the same as intelligence, and that we need intelligent machines, not conscious machines. No one has shown (to my satisfaction) that consciousness is useful for intelligence. Turing also thought that consciousness was irrelevant, writing "I do not think these mysteries necessarily need to be solved before we can answer the question with which we are concerned in this paper." ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 18:18, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I read the paper--- I think you are misinterpreting it a little bit. It's a question of positivism. Turing is saying that if the machine acts like it is aware over a teletype, indistinguishable from a person, he will accept that the machine is aware, like a person "in reality". He then sets up a possible response (equivalent to Searle's): "Maybe this is not enough, maybe this is only a simulation of consciousness without the real thing behind it", but then points out that if you take this position, you then are not sure about the awareness of other people, really. So this is a "reductio ad absurdum" for the position, as far as Turing is concerned. I think that nearly all mathematicians and CS people agree.

But if you are a philosopher, then Turing seems to be making a strong claim, namely that the phenomenon of awareness should be defined entirely by the positivist manifestation, by the observable consequences of the awareness. For example, Charles Gillingham suggests that this is not enough, that you would need to also look inside the machine, to see if it has analogs of neural correlates inside, like in a person's brain. I am pretty sure that Turing would not require this (after all, this is the whole reason for the test, to separate substrate from computation). So this is the positivism/anti-positivism business again, and although you really need a good poll, I believe that most science leaning people accept positivism by default.Likebox (talk) 21:56, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Right! Turing explicitly isn't making the "strong claim". This strong claim is Searle's Strong AI. Turing is primarily interested in whether machines can be intelligent (which can be defined by behavior) but not what it "feels like" to be an intelligent human being. He's not talking about things like consciousness (i.e., the way human beings experience perceiving and thinking as being part of a "stream" of qualia, mental imagery and inner speech, or the way the human mechanism of attention provides a kind of "clearing" in which our thoughts and experiences take place.) For Turing, this doesn't have to count as part of "thinking". As you say, Turing "would not require this".

There are two questions here: "Can a machine be intelligent?" and "Can a machine have a mind in the same sense that people have minds?" Only the second question is Strong AI. Turing (and the rest of AI research) are interested in the first question. Philosophers and neuroscientists are interested in the second question. I think most of the confusion about the Chinese Room has to do with a failure to appreciate this distinction.

(To complicate matters, Searle is actually talking about "intentionality", not consciousness. However, for Searle, intentionality is a specific aspect of the way human brains work, as is consciousness, so many of the same arguments that work for consciousness work for Searle's intentionality as well. Intentionality is even less well defined than consciousness, for me anyway, since I can't relate it to neurology in a way that makes sense to me.) ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 08:18, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

As I said, I think you are (slightly) misinterpreting again. While Turing is only explicitly talking about the outputs of consciousness, he is most definitely implying (or saying outright) that the only machine that could pass his test would have "qualia", "mental imagery", "figures of speech" etc. I think that the majority of CS people would agree.

If you are a positivist (and so many scientists were positivists then and are now by default), then passing the Turing test is just the definition of what it means to have mental imagery and qualia and all that junk.Likebox (talk) 15:52, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Virtual mind reply & schizophrenia

In the entry for schizophrenia it says : "Despite its etymology, schizophrenia is not the same as dissociative identity disorder, previously known as multiple personality disorder or split personality, with which it has been erroneously confused."

So the line here: "e.g. by considering an analogy of schizophrenia in human brain" is probably using the term wrongly. Myrvin (talk) 14:44, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

And it's not a good analogy anyway. Multiple personalities are not on different levels, they are horizontal. The Searle thing is vertical. The operator in the room is operating at a lower level "closer to the hardware", while the virtual mind is operating simultaneously at a higher level. So maybe the two minds/one head thing is not a good way to say it.Likebox (talk) 14:52, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. This argument, to me, isn't worth mentioning. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 03:47, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

As a first step to fixing this, I moved the "two minds in one head" discussion into a single paragraph. (It's important to have one topic per paragraph). As I said above, I would skip this whole topic, if it were up to me. But I'll let other editors decide how to fix it, for now. Specifically, I have these problems with the new material:

1. It is unsourced, but, if you all insist, some sources are mentioned here and here.
2. As Likebox points out, it's dissociative identity disorder, not schizophrenia.
3. This phrase doesn't belong in an encyclopedia:"[these] only show how limited and anthropocentric our understanding of the concept of mind and consciousness is." The word "our" in particular is inappropriate since everyone cited in this article (Paul or Patricia Churchland, Daniel Dennett, Marvin Minsky, David Chalmers, Ned Block, etc) has a very detailed idea of what consciousness is and how it differs from other aspects of human beings (such as mind, intelligence, cognition, awareness, qualia, mental contents, mental states, intentionality, perception, apperception, self-awareness, sentience, etc) These are not people with a "limited and anthropocentric" understanding of their field (be it philosophy, AI or neuroscience). ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 06:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

<I think there has been enough time for someone to gather sources and tie this paragraph into the literature. I'm going to delete it if no one objects. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 20:26, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

You need to understand to translate

You need to understand both the source and the target language to translate. Every real translator knows that. Searle's setup of a person that does not know Chinese and yet translates it to English and back is irrealistc. Even a thought experiement (*specially* a thought experiment) must be have realistic bases. This fault in Searle's theory is enough to invalidate it. Marius63 (talk) 21:47, 18 September 2009 (UTC)marius63

Comments on this page should be directed toward improving the article, not commenting on the topic per se. And any changes to the article would need to be based on identifiable published sources. Regards, Looie496 (talk) 22:01, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Searle is not assuming that the program translates, he is assuming that the program can answer in chinese. Talk page comments do not need to be sourced.Likebox (talk) 22:42, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Talk page comments don't need to be sourced, but talk page comments that express personal views without sources to back them up are not very useful for improving the article. Regards, Looie496 (talk) 03:36, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

LOL - this entire page is a personal opinion and is original research. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.84.0.116 (talk) 22:17, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

To understand or not understand...

I have a more fundamental question on this whole experiment. What does it mean "to understand." We can make any claim as to humans that do or don't understand, and the room that does/not. But how do we determine that anything "understands"? In other words, we make distinction between syntactic and semantics, but how do they differ? These two are typically (to me) the two extremes of a continuous attribute. Humans typically "categorize" everything and create artificial boundaries, in order for "logic" to be applicable to it. Syntax is the "simple" side of thought, where application of grammar rules is used, ex. The ball kicks the boy. Grammar wise very correct. But semantically wrong (the other side of the spectrum) - rules of the world, in addition to grammar, tells us that who ever utters this, does not "understand". In effect, we say that environmental information is captured also as rules, that validates an utterance on top of grammar. To understand, is to perceive meaning, which in turns imply that you are able to infer additional information from a predicate, by the application of generalized rules of the environment. These rules are just as write able as grammar, into this experiment's little black book. For me, the categorization of rules, and the baptism of "to understand" as "founded in causal properties" (again undefined) creates a false thought milieu in which to stage this experiment. (To me, a better argument in this debate on AI vs. thought is that a single thought is processing an infinite amount of data - think chaos theory and analog processing, where as digital processes cannot. But this is probably more relevant elsewhere.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.200.81.4 (talk) 05:35, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I think Searle imagines that the program has syntactically defined the grammar to avoid this. Instead of something simple like <noun> <verb> <noun> the grammar could be defined with rules like <animate object noun> <verb requiring animate object> <animate or inanimate noun>. So "kick" is a <verb requiring animate object>, "boy" is an <animate object noun> and ball is a <inanimate object noun>. The sentence "The ball kicks the boy" is then parsed to be <inanimate object noun> <verb requiring animate object> <animate object noun> which doesn't parse correctly. Therefore a computer program could recognize this statement as nonsense without having understanding of balls, boys or kicking. It just manipulated the symbols into the category to which they belonged and applied the rules.

This is a simple example and the actual rules would have to be very complex ("The ball is kicked by the boy" is meaningful so obviously more rules are needed). I'm not sure if anyone has been able to define English syntax in such a way as to avoid these kind of semantic errors (or Chinese for that matter). Additionally, it is unclear to me how a syntax could be defined which took into account the "semantic" of previous sentences. (For example, "A boy and his dog were playing with a ball. The boy kicked it over the house". What did he kick? Searle also cites a more complex example of a man whose hamburger order is burnt to a crisp. He stomps out of the restaurant without paying or leaving a tip. Did he eat the hamburger? Presumably not.) However, if we assume that some program can pass the Turing Test then we must assume that it can process syntax in such a way.

I agree with you, however, that Searle fails to define what he means by some key terms like "understanding". He argues that a calculator clearly doesn't understand while a human mind does. This argument falls flat since the point in question is whether the Chinese Room is "understanding" or not. It also begs the question, if the Chinese Room (which has no understanding) cannot be differentiated from a human mind then how are we sure that understanding is important to "mind" or that a human mind really does have "understanding"? Gwilson (talk) 15:58, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The notion before "understanding" is "meaning". What does "mean" mean? I think it means "a mapping", as in the idea of function in mathematics, from a domain to a range. It is an identification of similarities. It is like finding the referent, similar to the question: what kind of tree would you be if you were a tree? In this sense, syntax and semantics are not irrevocably unrelated. A mapping from one system of symbols into another system of symbols is meaning, is semantics. Then "understanding" becomes the ability to deal with mappings. ( Martin | talk • contribs 10:13, 8 July 2010 (UTC))

Searle's assumption

Likebox, the statement I tagged and which you untagged is not a quote, and I don't see how it could be read into the text. What Searle says is example shows that there could be two "systems," both of which pass the Turing test, but only one of which understands. This does not imply "that two separate minds can't be present in one head". If you have another source for that, please cite it. Regards, Paradoctor (talk) 17:56, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

The question is the framing. Should Searle's reasoning be made explicit, or should it be slightly mysterious? Searle's reply to the systems argument says that once the person internalizes all the procedures in his head, there is for sure only one entity capable of understanding, which is the person. He is saying that the insanely complicated mental calculations which the person is hypothetically performing in his head do not constitute a separate second entity which is capable of understanding chinese. This is best phrased directly "one head = one mind".

Searle's assumption that there is only one mind per head is his big obvious mistake. There is no change in content, only in framing. It is making explicit the implicit assumption, without arguing that it is wrong. I think it is necessary to balance the tone of the replies section, which continues to be annoyingly deferential to Searle's pontifications. The current framing the argument doesn't make Searle's "rebuttal" sound as vapid and trivial as it is.Likebox (talk) 18:55, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Searle's "assumption" is not at all "mysterious". Rather, the idea that "there can be two minds in one head" is mysterious. Think about it. To defeat Searle, you have to explain how this is possible, because it is actually quite ridiculous that an ordinary person could have two minds in his head.

There is a whole body of literature devoted to this, but I omitted it from the article, because, to be honest, it reminds me of scholastic question: "How many angels can fit on the head of pin?" It's metaphysical. When you say "there is another system there, besides the man, you need to say what you mean by system. (This is what the "virtual mind" or "emulation" response does.) Otherwise, you are using the word "system" in a way that veers dangerously close to metaphysics, and you may find yourself inadvertently defending dualism.

As far as the disputed sentence goes, it doesn't really require at tag. It's obvious, to me anyway. But I would write "Searle makes the commonsense assumption that you can't have two minds in one body. Proponents of strong AI must show that this is possible." And then we could have a footnote that describes some of this nonsensical literature. (Nonsensical in my opinion only, of course. The article should try to make it sound plausible.) ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 11:01, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I've refined my opinion about this, after thinking about it. See the post below on this date. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 18:51, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

It's easy for me to say what I mean by system--- because I always mean "computer program". That's because I accept Turing's identification of mind with software, same as every other technical commentator. Software and hardware are different, and if you want to call that "dualism", you can. It is only different from previous versions of dualism in that it is precise--- everyone knows exactly what hardware and software are.

Two minds in one head happens with split brain patients, and would also happen in the hypothetical case posited by Searle of one mind so large that it can completely simulate another. This is obvious to anyone who accepts the identification of mind with software, and this is the position of "strong AI", that I accept as manifestly obvious, along with thousands of others, none in the philosophy department. This is why Searle's argument is annoying--- it is arguing against a position which he doesn't understand.Likebox (talk) 13:58, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

reply to Likebox

"in his head do not constitute a separate second entity": Quote Searle: "The subsystem of the man that is the formal symbol manipulation system for Chinese should not be confused with the subsystem for English." Searle does accept the existence of a second "entity", he merely says that it is not a mind. A different kind of subsystem may very well have a mind, but this issue is not discussed by him.

"making explicit the implicit assumption": If he Searle didn't say it explicitly, maybe he didn't say it at all? Only a reliable source can justify including a statement that Searle made this or that imlpicit assumption. Provide a source, please.

"replies section" ... "annoyingly deferential to Searle": I don't know what you mean by "deferential", could you please explain what you mean?

"Two minds in one head happens with split brain patients": That is not scientific consensus, and is not addressing anything Searle stated, as shown three bullets above.

"I accept as manifestly obvious": That is your personal opinion, where are the sources providing arguments?

"thousands of others, none in the philosophy department": Quote from the history section: "Most of the discussion consists of attempts to refute it.".

"Searle's argument is annoying": Ignore it. It hasn't stopped even one computer scientist from doing anything.

reply to Charles

the idea that "there can be two minds in one head" is mysterious: Not at all. The second system consists of the neural correlates of the elements of the Chinese room. If you accept the Systems view that the room contains a Chinese mind, then there is no reason why you should reject this view in the internalized case.

"a whole body of literature devoted to this, but I omitted it from the article": WTF?!? Err, I'm almost afraid to ask: How to you reconcile that with WP:UNDUE? Are you saying that this body of literature does not consist of reliable sources?

"dangerously close to metaphysics": So what? It's not our job to judge theories, only to report on them.

"It's obvious, to me anyway": Ok, but I tagged it precisely because it is not obvious to me. So who of us is right, and why?

"commonsense assumption": Well, neither I nor Likebox think that it is commonsense. Could well be there are many more.

"nonsensical literature": See four bullets above.

"The article should try to make it sound plausible.": Yikes! You really want to present "nonsensical" stuff as "plausible"? On Wikipedia? I think I better run, because I don't wanna be struck by lightning. ;)

Regards, Paradoctor (talk) 21:01, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Likebox, I removed your citation because the source you cited is not reliable. It's an unreviewed draft of a paper that has seen no updates since 1997, and is linked by nobody. Thornley himself is not a reliable source by himself, he is just an amateur (in this field) with better education than most. Also note that the quoted statement is not equivalent to the one you seek to support: "two separate minds can't be present in one head" is not the same as "there is not two minds", the former is a statement about the limits of human heads (or rather brains), the latter is a statement about the special case of the internalized CRA. You can use the former to support the latter, but you'll need a reliable source for that. And you would still have to show that Searle did assume the statement in question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paradoctor (talk • contribs) 18:31, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I want to absolutely clear on this point about WP:UNDUE. Please note that we can't possibly cover every Chinese Room argument. This article is, and must be, a "greatest hits" of Chinese Room arguments. I'm not opposed to including one more, if it is widely accepted by some community or other. But frankly, I think giving any more space to this "two minds in one head" business is a waste of the reader's time. It's confusing and inconclusive. The article needs to move on to "virtual mind"/"emulation"/"running program" reply. This is a more important argument, I think, and it has a much better chance of defeating Searle.

I think you two are misreading the systems reply a little bit. The "system" (as Searle describes it "Minds, Brains and Programs") is a set of physical objects: a ledger, scratch paper, pencils, files and a large bipedal primate. It's not "software" or "neural correlates". The "virtual mind" reply is much closer to what you guys are talking about. Searle's response doesn't make any sense unless you see that we're only talking about this set of physical objects. He just eliminating the objects from the argument, so that there is no system to point to any more. He's forcing you to find something else to besides this set of physical objects. You both have found things you like. (I.e. "software", "neural correlates") The "virtual mind" reply takes your arguments a step further. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 09:42, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

"I want to absolutely clear" to "Chinese Room arguments": We are of one mind on that.

"not opposed to including one more, if it is widely accepted": That's a relief. ^_^

"waste of the reader's time. It's confusing and inconclusive": Well, that is the state of the matter, at least for those not affixed to one side or another. For Searle, the matter is clear: he is right. For Hauser, the matter is equally clear: Searle is wrong. Nothing we can do about it, except to accurately and fairly report on it. Consider the Chinese room the Palestine of consciousness. ;)

"more important argument, I think": By what yardstick? Your opinion, numbers of sources, or reliably sourced reviews of the literature on the Chinese room?

"better chance of defeating Searle": That's not our job, is it?

"misreading the systems reply": Woe me, assuming my statement could've satisfied you. ;) This is off-topic, but if you like, we can continue this conversation elsewhere, mail is probably a good idea. Paradoctor (talk) 15:14, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

< I'm having a little trouble figuring out if we have resolved this issue, so just to make it clear what we're talking about, here's the current structure of the "Finding the mind" section (where "->" means "rebutted by"):

(CHINESE ROOM -> SIMPLE SYSTEMS REPLY (pencils, etc) -> MAN MEMORIZES RULES (no pencils) -> (Ignore), (CR) -> SOPHISTICATED SYSTEMS REPLY (virtual mind) -> JUST A SIMULATION -> WHAT'S WRONG WITH SIMULATION?. CR FAILS. THIS DOESN'T PROVE STRONG AI.

It is possible to also add rebuttals to the "man memorizes", like this:

(CHINESE ROOM -> SIMPLE SYSTEMS REPLY (pencils, etc) -> MAN MEMORIZES RULES (no pencil) -> MAN HAS TWO MINDS IN ONE HEAD. (CR) -> SOPHISTICATED SYSTEMS REPLY (virtual mind) -> ... etc.

There are sources for "man has two minds in one head", and so this paragraph could be written, if someone wants to. I'm not interested in writing it myself, and I think the article is better without it.

The reason I believe it to be a "waste of the reader's time": Searle's description of the system reply is a straw man. He thinks the systems reply ascribes intentionality to a set of objects, one of which is a pencil. Searle refutes this reply by throwing out the pencil. He thinks he's disproved the systems reply. Most readers have no idea what Searle is doing or why it matters if there is no pencil. As Likebox says, it's "mysterious". The problem is that no one actually ascribed intentionality to the pencil. We all ascribe intentionality to something else. We might call it "software" or "neural correlates" or "a running program" or an "emulated mind" or a "virtual mind" or a "functional system", etc. But we're definitely not talking about just the pencil and the other physical objects. What's required is a more sophisticated version of the systems reply and, in this article, that's what MInsky's "virtual mind" argument is supposed to supply.

So the article, as it is written, allows Searle to have "the last word" against his straw man, and then moves on to the real argument. A sophisticated systems reply that actually works, and then Searle's basic objection to computationalism: a simulated mind is not the same as a real mind. I think these are the most important points on the ontological side of the argument.

So ... he hesitates ... are we all happy with that? ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 18:51, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I think that this area of the question, virtual minds, or, better, second minds, is interesting, and I don't have a settled opinion. When you get to emergent characteristics, they can be of a small scale. Bubbles in boiling water are small, but they area a change in the emergent property: gas and not liquid. And you have to add a lot of energy before the temperature starts to go up again. If there is a second mind, emergent, can it be small, a mosquito mind, but of a mosquito-savant? Additionally, I believe that people do have multiple-minds, however probably only the dominant one is connected to the sensory and the motor cortex usually. This multiplicity is most clearly seen in dreams, where you, the hero, can be surprised by words or actions of supporting characters. The search for an unconscious mind hidden in the brain seems to me to be a search more likely of success than of a search for a mind in a metal box, or in any system containing a pencil. ( Martin | talk • contribs 18:49, 8 July 2010 (UTC))

My god! That experiment is stupid. And wrong!

What Searle apparenly never gets, is that it is not the computer who is thinking (just as it is not the person). It is the program. What he says is exactly the same, as saying that the universe does not think, and thereby just a distraction that is unrelated to the original question.

What he also does not get, is that that program would not follow any "programmed rules". That's not how neural networks work.

And my ultimate counter-argument, is that if we simulate a brain, down to every function, it will be the same as a human brain, and will think and understand.

If you believe that there must(!!!1!1!one) be some higher "something" to it, because we are oooh-so-special (and this is where Searles motivation ultimately stems from), then you are a religious nutjob, and nobody that has the ability to argue about this.

Another proof, that it you wisecrack like an academic, in front of people that have no idea of the subject, they will think you are right, no matter what crap you tell them.

— 88.77.184.209 (talk) 21:13, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that the experiment is stupid. But it just doesn't work for Searle's ideas. It's a valid attack to computationalism that just happens to fail. ;) nihil (talk) 22:53, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

From a non-philosophy-nerd

I have a question. What if the positions were reversed? The Chinese speaker has a list of commands written in binary, which he doesn't understand. He gives these to the computer. The computer reads the code, and performs an action. The computer clearly associates the symbols with the action. Does it therefore 'understand' what the symbols mean? The human doesn't understand the symbols. Does this mean he cannot think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.6.149.17 (talk) 08:18, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

See Turing test. Dlabtot (talk) 15:59, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know that what you describe is one of reversed positions. You didn't say how the Chinese man gives the commands to the computer. Let's say he types them on a keyboard. And to make things simpler, instead of commands in binary, let's say that the commands are in an English language font and the commands are shell commands. If the computer does something, in a sense, the computer understood what the Chinese man requested, even if the Chinese man did not, but "understands" only in the sense that an elevator understands that you want to go up when you push the button. Then you ask if all this means that the Chinese man cannot think. No, that does not follow, obviously. ( Martin | talk • contribs 15:02, 7 July 2010 (UTC))

RfC: WP policy basis for removing Cultural References section

Hi, please help us conclude whether there's a basis in WP policy to remove a Cultural References section from this article - and specifically to remove information about a feature film which is named for and concerns this topic. I'd really appreciate first taking a look at the mediation of the topic which lays out the major arguments. (At the bottom you can find the mediator's response to the discussion.) Sorry to bring it back to this Talk Page, but it seems to be the next step. Reading glasses (talk) 18:18, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

---

• Wikipedia content must be verifiable to independent reliable sources. Film festival schedules do not meet this requirement. see Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Film_festival_listings_for_undistributed_films. Dlabtot (talk) 18:38, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

It should also be noted that our Verifiability policy clearly states that: The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material.

The operative questions here are:

• Why should this material be included in this article?
• Is the material verifiable to reliable sources? Dlabtot (talk) 19:57, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm hoping to also hear from 3rd party editors who have not already been part of the discussion and mediation. And I'll refrain from reproducing the whole discussion here. Reading glasses (talk) 02:42, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

• RfC Comment. I came here from the RfC notice. I've never been involved before in this page and its past discussions, and I've read everything linked to above. What I think is that it comes down to a matter of opinion about whether this particular cultural reference is sufficiently notable to include. (Minor note: in the header for the section, the second word should not be capitalized.) The available sourcing is clearly insufficient to justify a standalone page (as I think everyone agrees), but it is sufficient to source the existence of the cultural reference. In a way, it comes down to WP:Handling trivia, which answers the question "should trivia be allowed on Wikipedia?" by saying "yes and no." The presentation in the film is of relatively low importance to the main subject matter of the page and appears to have had little or no cultural impact beyond the film itself. On the other hand, the film contains a significant and unambiguous reference to the subject of this page. There is no reason to say that the page should only contain the main topic and exclude cultural references. So, the two sentences do not add a lot to the page, but they do not detract from it either. Thus, there is no objective right or wrong answer. My inclination would be to include it, but maybe to downgrade it to a level-three heading at the end of the history section. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:32, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Another RFC Comment Trivia sections always seem to be contentious, and I think there must be some fundamental moral divide as to how serious Wikipedia is supposed to be. Last time I checked, Wikipedia policy on trivia sections is pretty vague, and I don't think looking for that type of authority will give either of you the answers you are looking for. My own opinion, apart from policy, is to not include trivia unless it's really interesting (if you're going to add something that detracts from Wikipedia's seriousness, it had better be fun). This film tidbit doesn't strike me as interesting at all.

That being said, I do kind of like the screenshot. It captures the essense of the 'Chinese room' (non-Chinese person analyzing a Chinese message using a big algorithm) much better than the current picture, and it's pretty to boot. If someone wanted to include the picture, appropriately captioned, I wouldn't object. --Rsl12 (talk) 21:42, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

"trivia": Calling something "trivia" is basically the same as calling it unimportant. Unimportant for what? I agree that it has no relevance to the scientific debate of the topic. But as I said before, this is an encyclopedic article. We do not exclude facts just because they're not of interest for a particular approach to a concept. I think WP:IDONTLIKEIT and WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT can be helpful here. Paradoctor (talk) 05:09, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

WP:IPC is probably the most relevant to my opinion:

"In popular culture" sections should contain verifiable facts of interest to a broad audience of readers. Exhaustive, indiscriminate lists are discouraged, as are passing references to the article subject.... If a cultural reference is genuinely significant it should be possible to find a reliable secondary source that supports that judgment. Quoting a respected expert attesting to the importance of a subject as a cultural influence is encouraged. Absence of these secondary sources should be seen as a sign of limited significance, not an invitation to draw inference from primary sources.

But beyond policy and guidelines, it's just a low budget movie, low no ticket sales (this is an undistributed movie), low recognition. To put this into perspective, what if I added the following tidbit to the Animal Farm article:

Animal Farm in Popular Culture: Hookers in Revolt is a retelling of the Animal Farm story, where the prostitutes revolt against the pimps to take over management of their bordello, only to turn more corrupt than the pimps ever were (cite trailer where the director says as much).

The Animal Farm in popular culture article is already very crufty, even with somewhat notable pop culture references. Something similar to my example could be added to Wikipedia for virtually every super-low budget movie ever made. There are a lot of super-low budget movies. --Rsl12 (talk) 10:34, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Also from WP:IPC, talking in general, but using the comic strip xkcd as an example:

When trying to decide if a pop culture reference is appropriate to an article, ask yourself the following:

1. Has the subject acknowledged the existence of the reference?
2. Have reliable sources which don't generally cover xkcd pointed out the strip?
3. Did any real-world event occur because of the reference?

If you can't answer "yes" to at least one of these, you're just adding trivia. Get all three and you're possibly adding valuable content.

--Rsl12 (talk) 12:34, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

At the risk of repeating what I said in an earlier discussion, to be a part of 'pop culture', something must be popular. A movie that did not see a theatrical nor a DVD release, and was unable to garner any reviews in reliable sources does not meet this criteria, in fact, it's not even a part of our shared culture. As to the picture, I think it lends the false impression that a Chinese Room really could look like that, while of course a Chinese Room could not even exist in reality - which is part of the flaw in Searle's argument. Dlabtot (talk) 14:20, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I do still like the movie picture. Schrödinger's cat is a better article because of the clear illustration. I seriously doubt anyone is going to think, based on the picture, that there's actually a poor lady who has to sit cross legged in a red closet and compile Chinese. Or am I overestimating the intelligence of your average undergraduate Philosophy major?  :) --Rsl12 (talk) 15:01, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

The article is targeted for a general audience, not for philosophy majors or computer scientists. Schrödinger's cat is able to have a clear illustration because such a device could actually be constructed. That's not the case with the Chinese Room. Which is why I believe including a picture that implies otherwise would be a mistake. Dlabtot (talk) 15:13, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I think you know I was joking, but for the record, I also seriously doubt that the average reader will worry about the poor lady trapped in the closet. --Rsl12 (talk) 15:50, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't really understand what you are talking about, frankly. I'm talking about whether the picture is a good illustration of the thought experiment and I've given reasons why I think it is not -- it is a clear illustration of something that is not at all like a Chinese Room. Dlabtot (talk) 16:32, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I misunderstood your argument. I agree that a "real" Chinese room wouldn't look like that. It's just an artistic interpretation of what a Chinese room would be like. Artistic interpretations can still be useful as illustrations. It's also impossible for a boat the size of the one shown in the Noah's Ark article to hold two of every species of animal, but isn't the artist's rendition of it a nice addition to the article? --Rsl12 (talk) 16:54, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

While I agree with you about Edward Hicks' painting, I'm not sure he would have. At any rate, his painting is notable for a number of reasons, and therefore is appropriate for that article. I don't think it is analogous to the situation here. Dlabtot (talk) 17:07, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh dear, it appears that this RfC hasn't helped much. Please understand, my reference to trivia was not made pejoratively, only to indicate that the matter is secondary to the main subject of the page, and, indeed, potentially popular culture. As for whether or not it is popular enough, I'm afraid that's in the eye of the beholder, and the beholders here appear unlikely to agree or compromise. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:23, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Tryptofish, I think that's key - 'popular enough' is in the eye of the beholder. And let's say it roughly translates to 'notability'- notability doesn't apply here. In WP:N we see that "These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article. They do not directly limit the content of articles." That leaves the next obviously relevant policy, WP:NOT and specifically WP:INDISCRIMINATE. But the info I placed on the Chinese Room page very simply does not fall into any of the 'indiscriminate information' categories.

I found your quote from Wikipedia:IPC intriguing, but with all respect, I see that this is an 'essay'. (I'm learning as I go here). The page itself says "essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Consider these views with discretion." I actually tend to agree with much of it, but I would say this:

The CR article is about a concept, and the section I created shows that concept being engaged with in broader culture. I think that's how this is distinguished from other random trivia. It's not a list of appearances in song lyrics. In fact the word 'reference' might even be misleadingly weak. Maybe the way the section is written is important - whether it's more about the film or about the connection to the main topic. Reading glasses (talk) 21:25, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

There is nothing that you say here that I would disagree with. As I originally said, I would lean towards including the material, albeit maybe with some changes to the way it is written. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:19, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Any suggestions would definitely be appreciated, but either way thanks for the input. Reading glasses (talk) 17:29, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

My suggestion would be what I said in the last sentence of my first comment, above. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:47, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Comment There's nothing wrong with making decisions based on Wikipedia essays. Though they may represent a minority view, that doesn't mean they do and WP:IPC has been edited a lot of times by a lot of people so it is apparent that it's not one guy who hasn't put much thought into the idea. By reading an essay before making a decision you can benefit from the fact that you're not the only one who has thought about the issue before and that it has already been tackled in a different context. --Paul Carpenter (talk) 16:11, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Paul, I see your point and don't mean to imply anything's wrong with essays. I'm just going with what I found when I followed the link - that disclaimer was right on top, but it's not evident before you navigate there. Reading glasses (talk) 17:29, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Dlabtot - if a more functional, instructive image can be found that help show how the Chinese Room works, I would prefer that to simply an artistic recreation from a low-budget movie. I found one or two half decent ones doing a google search. I don't know if permissions could be obtained. --Rsl12 (talk) 19:40, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I've come for the RfC and think that material should be included because it's innocuous and relevant. Leadwind (talk) 03:48, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

• Leave it out. It adds nothing to the understanding of the topic, and IMHO, is silly. And I agree we'd need better sourcing if was going to be included. Yilloslime ^T_C 05:40, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I am going to suggest that this issue be taken to formal mediation, or perhaps another round with the cabal.Ronk01 (talk) 06:47, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

implementation independent

This line is a little confusing but I don't know how to fix it. Is it needed?

• A virtual machine is also "implementation independent" in that it doesn't matter what sort of hardware it runs on: a PC, a Macintosh, a supercomputer, a brain or Searle in his Chinese room.[33]

If this means only that a design is different from its implementation, that is true of everything. If it means something else, what is it? ( Martin | talk • contribs 18:43, 2 July 2010 (UTC))

I agree that this line is a little unclear. "Implementation independent" means that it's the same "virtual machine" no matter what hardware it runs on. You can stop the simulation, save it to disk, load the disk onto a new computer, start the virtual machine up and, as far as the virtual machine is concerned, nothing has happened. "Implementation independence" is the software engineering equivalent of multiple realizability. (Sorry I didn't reply earlier; I overlooked this post.) ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 19:11, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Nah. You say <"Implementation independent" means that it's the same "virtual machine">. Ok, but that is not what the text says. I interpret what it says to be 'All virtual machines are implementation independent'. The JVM may be an example of a virtual machine that runs on many platforms. But WINE doesn't. A simulator does not need to be implemented on more than one platform to qualify as creating a virtual machine. In the Chinese Room, the two different programs are the book with the instructions in English, which served no doubt as the design document for the programmer for the AI program that is posited to exist. And in this case, you can't serialize the state of the machine, and transfer the state to the poor human, and expect him to start back up mid-execution. My point: that sentence is mostly wrong-headed, unless what it means is that a Virtual Machine is a Reference Design. And if that is what it means, what follows of significance from that? I don't see anything. And I think most of the talk of machinery is failing to support the point, or even make the point: here is why we say that this type of machinery thinks. What I suspect, pause, is that the text may be hinting at the idea that a virtual machine is a disembodied entity, like a mind is.

gasp.( Martin | talk • contribs 00:49, 9 July 2010 (UTC))

Simplification of lead

Can't we change

• The Chinese room argument comprises a thought experiment and associated arguments by John Searle (1980)

to

• The Chinese Room is an argument by John Searle (1980)"

( Martin | talk • contribs 16:52, 2 July 2010 (UTC))

 Fixed ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 19:12, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Problems with the Stanford Encyclopedia

(I put this above the comment above the paragraph below, to be out of the way.) A fuller quote from the Stanford Encyclopedia is below, posted by μηδείς at 23:15, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

• 1. "[The Chinese Room argument, devised by John Searle, is an argument against the possibility of true artificial intelligence.]" "True artificial intelligence"? As opposed to artificial artificial intelligence? AND, Searle does not argue against the possibility of true artificial intelligence.
• 2. "[Searle argues that the thought experiment underscores the fact that computers merely use syntactic rules to manipulate symbol strings, but have no understanding of meaning or semantics.]" This misstates what Searle argues. He does not say that computers "have no understanding".

Here is a quote from Searle (Chapter 5: Can machines think). There is no obstacle in principle to something being a thinking computer. ... Let's state this carefully. What the Chinese Room argument showed is that computation is not sufficient to guarantee the presence of thinking or consciousness. ... ( Martin | talk • contribs 12:15, 5 July 2010 (UTC))

By "true" they are referring to "strong AI", which is in keeping with Searle. Searle allows for the possibility that computers can simulate intelligence ("weak AI"), but as that isn't true intelligence, in his sense, then it isn't a problem. And yes, Searle does believe that machines can think, but he is clear in stating that only certain types of machines can think - those that have causal powers. Which, I gather, doesn't include computers. :) (At least in "Minds, Brains and Computers", he is clear that intentionality is a biological phenomenon, so any non-biological computer would lack intentionality. Digital computers are right out). - Bilby (talk) 12:57, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree that he is saying: symbol manipulation cannot give rise to understanding. Allow me to say that the brain seems more like an analog computer than a digital computer. One essential of a digital computer is a program status word, which keeps track of the place in the program. If the brain does not have this, it is not a digital computer. Another is a clock, and usually mechanisms for masking interrupts which essentially lengthens the clock cycle. ( Martin | talk • contribs 06:23, 12 July 2010 (UTC))

Martin, that is a most excellent quote. Can you provide a full citation for the quote which you attribute to "Chapter 5: Can machines think"? What book and what page? μηδείς (talk) 17:09, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Medeis, here is a link to essentially that statement: http://machineslikeus.com/interviews/machines-us-interviews-john-searle "Could a man-made machine -- in the sense in which our ordinary commercial computers are man-made machines -- could such a man-made machine, having no biological components, think? And here again I think the answer is there is no obstacle whatever in principle to building a thinking machine," My quote above is from an audio. Excerpt: http://yourlisten.com/channel/content/51656/Can%20a%20machine%20think ( Martin | talk • contribs 03:05, 6 July 2010 (UTC))

In light of this discussion, and the discussion below, I have written a section under "Searle's targets" that tries to explain exactly what the argument applies to, e.g., a computer (with no understanding of it's own) executing a program (that makes it appear to understand). For the sake of the general reader, I've tried to keep it simple and define each term as it is used. Have a look and see what you think. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 09:56, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Lead paragraph has problems, I believe

The lead paragraph is: The Chinese room argument comprises a thought experiment and associated arguments by John Searle (1980), which attempts to show that a symbol-processing machine like a computer can never be properly described as having a "mind" or "understanding", regardless of how intelligently it may behave.

1. . However, I assert that "can never be properly described" cannot be the conclusion of one thought experiment. A counter-example cannot be used to assert a universal.
2. . In addition, although Searle does construct a system that exhibits artificial intelligence which does not require consciousness for its behavior, it is not true that this system has no mind. The man has a mind, and the system has the man.

This is not a joke or a quibble. I believe my change was reverted in error. ( Martin | talk • contribs 21:35, 30 June 2010 (UTC))

You are right that the conclusion Searle draws is in error. Nevertheless that is his conclusion. You clearly understand this better than John Searle does. I will leave it to others to re-revert you or to explain in more detail. Dlabtot (talk) 22:01, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Diabtot. The key is that the sentence says "attempts to show" rather than "shows". Perhaps the attempt is a failure, but that doesn't mean you can say he was attempting to show something that he wasn't attempting to show. But really I think you have it backward: Searle wasn't trying to use a counterexample to prove a universal, but rather to disprove a universal -- which is certainly a proper way to use a counterexample. Regards, Looie496 (talk) 22:08, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Of course I need to respond to the statement "But really I think you have it backward" where the "it" is not only something I do not say; namely, that you can use a counterexample to prove a universal, but which I say you cannot do; meaning this is something that I think Searle would not do because it makes no sense. However, I will need to read what Searle says to find out if that was what he was arguing - a clear blunder it seems that people are saying.( Martin | talk • contribs 00:15, 2 July 2010 (UTC))

The problem is in the formulation. "attempts to show" sounds like we're implying that he failed. This may be true or not, but it is not our job to judge the correctness of the argument. I'm replacing the problematic phrase with "leads to the conclusion". Paradoctor (talk) 03:28, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I completely disagree. He did indeed attempt to show that - an indisputable fact that implies nothing. On the other hand, only a small minority believe that his argument actually leads to the conclusion that he asserts it does. Rather that replacing, reverting, or rewriting the phrase, I just took it out, which left the meaning of the lede essentially unchanged while avoiding this argument. Comments? Dlabtot (talk) 03:48, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Works for me.

"completely disagree": "not our job to judge the correctness of the argument" Seriously? Paradoctor (talk) 04:04, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I shouldn't have said 'completely'. I disagreed with your reasons for making your edit. Dlabtot (talk) 04:24, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Roger that. Paradoctor (talk) 05:15, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, "attempts [sic] to show" implies that he was wrong and hence violates NPOV. The current lead:

The Chinese room argument comprises a thought experiment and associated arguments by John Searle (1980) that a symbol-processing machine like a computer can never be properly described as having a "mind" or "understanding", regardless of how intelligently it may behave.

except for being too strong is quite good. I have changed the wording to "mere symbol processing machine" since Searle does not deny that brains process symbols. He holds that they do more than that, taht they deal with semantics as well as manipulating symbols using syntactical rules.μηδείς (talk) 04:22, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that the introduction of the word "mere", in order to fix the problem with the word "never", results in a less satisfactory statement than what I wrote to begin with:

• The Chinese room argument comprises a thought experiment and associated arguments by John Searle, which attempts to show that a symbol-processing machine like a computer need not be described as having a "mind" or "understanding", regardless of how intelligently it may behave.

(The above is taken from comparison of versions) but which I would now rewrite as

• The Chinese room thought experiment by John Searle claims to show that a symbol-processing black box need not be described as having a "mind" or "understanding", regardless of how intelligently it may behave.

The word "machine" doesn't help at all, and black-box is what he was describing, as in the Turing Test. He does show us the inside, but only as a magician might, to help us see. So I object to the word "mere", as begging the question. Does the elevator come because it realized that we pushed the button? It depends.( Martin | talk • contribs 00:39, 2 July 2010 (UTC))

If, as you say above, you haven't yet read Searle's article (which is very readable), may I suggest that you do so before continuing with this discussion? "Need not" misrepresents what Searle was saying. He was arguing for "should not". Looie496 (talk) 00:52, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

I have read it. I meant again. But "should not" is fine with me, meaning "it can not ever correctly be concluded that the system has a conscious mind." ( Martin | talk • contribs 14:47, 2 July 2010 (UTC))

And if there is a sentence or two that you think I have missed, you might draw my attention to it :P ( Martin | talk • contribs 16:30, 2 July 2010 (UTC))

The word mere to qualify symbol-processing machines was most emphatically not introduced to fix any problem with the word never.

The issue is that Searle nowhere denies that one of the capacities of the brain is the ability to manipulate syntax. He does not deny that the brain processes symbols. What he denies is that symbol processing alone entails comprehending a meaning. He denies that syntax entails semantics. He writes, "The Chinese room argument showed that semantics is not intrinsic to syntax." (tRotM, p 210) The brain does indeed processs symbols, but it also does other things which import semantic meaning to those symbols. Hence the unqualified statement without mere includes the brain and is simply false.

An analogy would be like saying that a diving organism can never be described as flying or a photosynthetic organism can never be described as carnivorous when pelicans do dive and euglena do eat. Adding the word mere corrects the overgeneralization.

As currently stated, without any other changes, the sentence needs the word mere or some other qualification to exclude other faculties.

Also, while MartinGugino opposes the use of the word he does so in the context of supporting a different lead from the current one, and admittingthat he needs to read further on the subject.

I do not oppose rewriting the lead, I find the general criticisms valid. But as it stands, without the word mere, the lead is simply overbroad and false.μηδείς (talk) 03:51, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Medeis (μηδείς) is right, I think, but I don't think the word "mere" fixes the problem. I don't think the general reader is going to be able to understand exactly what we mean by "mere symbol processing". For that matter, "symbol processing machine like a computer" is not particularly clear or precise either.

This is difficult technical point and I don't have a perfect solution. For the general reader, we should write simply that Searle argues that "a computer can never be properly described as "having a mind"." This would give the reader a very clear idea of the subject of the article. Is the word "computer" precise enough? Does the reader realize that all a computer does is follow instructions about moving tiny things from one box to another very, very fast? Do we gain anything by calling this "symbol manipulation"?

If we rewrite the lead some more, I hope we don't lose the phrase "regardless of how intelligently it may behave", since this is an important part of Searle's argument.

I disagree with Martin about several points. (1) He's disproving a universal, as Looie says. The universal is "any computer can have a mind, with the right program." He proposes a particular computer, the Chinese Room, and (maybe) shows that this computer has no mind (maybe), even if it runs the right program. If accepted, this disproves the universal. (2) I think Searle is most definitely trying to prove that mere syntax is never sufficient for semantics. He is not saying that it "need not", or even "should not". He's saying "never". (3) There is no "black box." We're talking about a computer and computer program: a mechanical device that follows physically stored instructions to manipulate symbols represented by physical states of physical objects. This is the device that Searle says can't have a mind. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 05:16, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. I don't disagree with you as much as you think I do, and so I think you don't disagree with me as much as you think you do either. I don't object to what you say in (1). I don't object to what you say in (2), as long as "never" means "never sufficient" rather than "never has", which was the usage that I modified. As far as (3), I need to say that, on the contrary, what there is not in Searle's Chinese Room is a computer, in the ordinary sense. Were you intending a 'virtual computer'; man as a machine, with a mind left over? What I don't see is how Searle can be thought to say, as you say: "This is the device that Searle says can't have a mind." The "device" you refer to is equivalent to the Chinese Room, or why bring it up, and the Chinese Room does have a mind, since it has a man. All Searle can say is that the behavior of the device does not imply a (conscious mind). All he can say is "I don't see a mind that accounts for the behavior". Regarding black-box, Searle considers the thoughts of the person outside the room, and the room is a black-box to that person. I see that comment that Searle denies that this is about consciousness, but I put it that way, because that is the framework that makes the most sense to me. Apologies, if that is the issue. ( Martin | talk • contribs 15:28, 2 July 2010 (UTC))

With all due respect, the Chinese Room is a computer. It's a Von Neumann machine. It has exactly the same design as any modern computer and it is Turing complete. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 19:30, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

This, "the Chinese Room does have a mind, since it has a man" is an equivocation. We might as well say that if there is a man sitting on a chair in the closet of a fishing shack on an otherwise deserted island that the chair and the closet and the shack and the island all have minds because they have men.

Searle's position is simple. The intelligent behavior of the Chinese room is parasitic upon the consciousness of the person who wrote the manual whose instructions the agent sitting inside the room follows. The person who wrote the manual is the homunculus, and the consciousness of Chinese and how to use it in the context of the world resides in him, not in the room or the manual or the man in the room or all of the latter together. They are just tools following the instructions of the actually conscious programmer, after the fact.

Of course, this is not a forum for discussion of the topic, but of the article.

As far as the lead, I suggest we simply quote Searle as to what he himself says his arguments accomplish. He does this at length in The Rediscovery of the Mind, especially in the summary of chapter nine, p225-226.μηδείς (talk) 21:33, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

How is it an equivocation? There is a mind on the island; there is a mind in the room.( Martin | talk • contribs 06:16, 3 July 2010 (UTC))

You say "Searle's position is simple." Then you say things that don't sound like Searle.( Martin | talk • contribs 06:16, 3 July 2010 (UTC))

Quotes are fine with me. Let's get them ( Martin | talk • contribs 06:16, 3 July 2010 (UTC))

I have extracted MartinGugino's comments from within the body of my last post. Please don't fragment another editor's comments, it breaks continuity and, although you can sign your interjections you cannot do so for the person you interrupt and so it obscures who is talking. Use quotes instead.

In response, Martin, you just equivocated again. To say that "there is a mind on the island" (i.e., a creature with a mind on the island) is far different from saying that the island itself has a mind. I am not sure why you object to the fact that I use my own words when explaining Searle. I implied this was original research. But Searle does indeed use the word homunculus and does indeed say that the intentionality of the Chinese room comes from the consciousness of the person who wrote the manual.μηδείς (talk) 16:37, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Category Mistakes

This discussion suffers from category mistakes. Consciousness is neither a substance nor an entity. It is a relation. Relationships do not have location per se, only physical entities do. (Don't get confused and say that the equator has a location. It does not have a location, it is a location that exists in relation to the parts of an entity.) Aristotle provides ten categories. We can simplify them to three. There are substances - primarily entities - which exist "on their own" without being predicated of any other existent, such as the moon and George Herbert Walker Bush or the Houses of Parliament. Entities and substances are primary existents Then there are properties such as round and solid which exist of entities but not on their own. They are secondary existents. (We do not experience "roundness" or "solidity" walking down the street unless it is the roundness or solidity of some entity.) And then there are relations which are tertiary existents, which exist between other existents. Fatherhood is the relation of George HW Bush to George W Bush. Numerical equality is the relation between the number of US State Governors and the number of stars on the US flag. Consciousness is a relationship. Consciousness is a type of harmony between a sensitive creature and its environment by which the sensitive (having sense organs) creature can assimilate the form of objects in its environment without assimilating their substance. (Compare this to eating, in which we assimilate the substance, but not the form of our food.) Consciousness is, on a hugely more complicated scale, like the harmony between a tuning fork and a musical instrument with which it vibrates sympathetically. Consciousness does not have a location, any more than the equality of nine and three squared has a location, or the fatherhood of GHWB for GWB has a location. Locations themselves are relations. But locations do not have locations. We use the word mind as a convenient means of treating consciousness as if it were an entity. But this is a linguistic affectation. The mind is not, contra Descartes, a substance. Hence it is a mistake to speak of "where" a mind is. There is no mind "in" the Chinese room. The proper question to ask in the case of the Chinese room is between what entities does the relationship consciousness of exist. The answer is that the it is the designer of the manual who is conscious of Chinese and it is in relation to his knowledge and the tools that he sets up, the manual and the room and the agent who to sort the papers according to his instructions whom he arranges for which provide the intelligent output. The mind involved is that of the manual writer, whom Searle refers to as the homunculus. It is he who provides the meaning which is communicated to the questioner. The room is his dumb tool. μηδείς (talk) 16:35, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Re: "consciousness does not have a location" - is the mind is in the head? ( Martin | talk • contribs 14:32, 7 July 2010 (UTC)) Re:"The mind involved is that of the manual writer" - what if he is dead? ( Martin | talk • contribs 14:39, 7 July 2010 (UTC))

Back on topic

I think you all have brought up a solid objection to the current lead: it's not clear what a "computer" is. This is why it is important to μηδείς that we identify the computer as a "mere symbol processor", and why Martin thinks that presence of the man's mind implies the computer "has" a mind. I don't think the current lead solves this problem.

I think that we need to keep the lead simple enough that a person who is just trying to, say, distinguish Chinese box from Chinese room, can read a sentence or two without being inundated with hair-splitting details. So the lead should have just a sentence. How about this:

"<argument that> a computer program can't create a 'mind' or 'understanding' in a computer, no matter how intelligently it may make the computer behave."

By emphasizing the program, rather than the machine, I hope I am making it clear the we are talking about symbol processing. (Is the word "create" okay? It's a common usage word that doesn't have the ontological baggage of "cause" or "cause to exist", both of which are less clear to me.)

But this is not enough to fully clarify the issues that you all have raised. I think we need a one or two paragraph section under Searle's targets that describes what a computer is: it should mention Von Neumann architecture, Turing machine, Turing complete, Formal system and physical symbol system. It should explain the Church-Turing thesis and how it applies the Chinese room. It should mention dualism, and make it clear that Searle is a materialist, and that his argument only applies to computers and programs, not to machines in general. It could also mention the Turing test and black-box functionalism, which will make more sense in this context. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 20:36, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I fully agree with your third paragraph. Could you write out your full suggested lead, CharlesGillingham? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Medeis (talk • contribs) 21:34, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Sure:

The Chinese room argument comprises a thought experiment and associated arguments by John Searle (1980) that a computer program can't create a 'mind' or 'understanding' in a computer, no matter how intelligently it may make the computer behave.

I dunno. The language is still awful. ("argument comprises ... arguments"? ick.) I also think the lead needs more detail, something like the Stanford thing below. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 00:12, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

From the Stanford encyclopedia

Here is the introductory paragraph of the Chinese Room article of the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

"The Chinese Room argument, devised by John Searle, is an argument against the possibility of true artificial intelligence. The argument centers on a thought experiment in which someone who knows only English sits alone in a room following English instructions for manipulating strings of Chinese characters, such that to those outside the room it appears as if someone in the room understands Chinese. The argument is intended to show that while suitably programmed computers may appear to converse in natural language, they are not capable of understanding language, even in principle. Searle argues that the thought experiment underscores the fact that computers merely use syntactic rules to manipulate symbol strings, but have no understanding of meaning or semantics. Searle's argument is a direct challenge to proponents of Artificial Intelligence, and the argument also has broad implications for functionalist and computational theories of meaning and of mind. As a result, there have been many critical replies to the argument."

I find the first sentence fatally misleading, since it equivocates on what artificial intelligence is. By Strong AI, Searle means the notion that "the mind is just a computer program." (Return, 43). He nowhere states that an artificial and intelligent brain is an impossibility. (Note the importance of the capitalization or lack thereof of the term "Artificial Intelligence.") I think the remainder of the introduction is accurate, and note with especial satisfaction the use of the word merely in qualification of the use of syntactic rules to manipulate symbols strings.μηδείς (talk) 23:15, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with your objection. That first sentence just creates confusion and starts unnecessary arguments. First, for the reason you state, but also because AI isn't held back by Searle's objection; artificial intelligent behavior is artificial intelligence, as far as AI research is concerned.

It would be nice if the lead had around this length and level of detail. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 23:56, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

New Lead

I have rewritten the introduction with some of this discussion in mind. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 21:05, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

The lead is an improvement over the prior one. Yet you give undue weight to Harnad, mentioning him in two paragraphs and as often as Searle himself.. This; "The argument has generated an extremely large number of replies and refutations; so many that Harnad concludes that "the overwhelming majority still think that Chinese Room Argument is dead wrong."" amounts to synthesis. Does Harnad say that or are you atributing his statement to the large number of "refutations"? And it amounts to POV. To say they are refutations is to say that Searle has been refuted. The simple solution is to return to my one sentence condensation of Harnad.

You also say that" The program uses artificial intelligence to perfectly simulate the behavior of a Chinese speaking human being." The use of "artificial intelligence" and "perfectly" amount to begging the question and should be deleted. Also, the man simply follows the instructions, he is not simulating a computer per se, but just following a program. It should say something neutral like "in which a man who does not himself speak chinese responds sensibly to questions put to him in chinese characters by following the instructions of a program written in a manual."

As for the syntax/semantics statement, I will find a replacement that speaks of the manipulation of synbols and their meaning.μηδείς (talk) 23:57, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

On the Harnad quote. I'm not opposed to dropping it, but I think I have accurately reported what he meant: this is not synthesis. In the cited article, Harnad talks his time as editor of BBS, when the argument was first published, and in that position he was impressed with the sheer number of critical replies that they received, as well those on comp.ai and so on. So I think it really is the number that he is talking about. The whole quote is

"And make no mistake about it, if you took a poll -- in the first round of BBS Commentary, in the Continuing Commentary, on comp.ai, or in the secondary literature about the Chinese Room Argument that has been accumulating across both decades to the present day (and culminating in the present book) -- the overwhelming majority still think the Chinese Room Argument is dead wrong, even among those who agree that computers can't understand!"

Read the first couple of pages of the article and see if you agree.

In any case, it's not important to me that we quote Harnad. I used it just because I love the phrase "dead wrong". I do think that the lead should probably report the fact that the vast majority of people who are familiar with argument are not convinced by it, and a sizeable majority are openly annoyed by it. This is, I think, an interesting fact about the argument that the reader should know. It is also an interesting an important fact that it has generated a simply enormous literature of critical replies. What other argument has been so thoroughly criticized, from so many different directions?

If you want to say the same thing without mentioning Harnad, that's fine with me. However, I do prefer it if we cover this issue in a separate paragraph from the AI vs. AI research vs. computationalism paragraph. Otherwise it just gets to murky.

You are correct that I misused the word "refutation". I'm switching it to "critical replies".

Feel free to take a crack at this paragraph, if you like. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 06:02, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

 Fixed. Finally decided that you may be right about the quote. Sorry to quibble. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 19:15, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

On "perfect" and "artificial intelligence". I think I may be misunderstanding your objection here. Which question being "begged"? The thought experiment begins with the premise that AI has succeeded in simulating human behavior, including intelligent behavior. The question is not whether or not this is possible. The question is whether a simulation of intelligent human behavior has consciousness and intentionality.

The phrase "perfect simulation" is precisely what Searle has in mind. He uses exactly these words in his description of the Chinese Room in The Rediscovery of the Mind, where he writes:

"my Chinese Room argument ... showed that a system could instantiate a program so as to give a perfect simulation of some human cognitive capacity, such as the capacity to understand Chinese, even though that system has no understanding of Chinese whatever." p. 45, bold italics mine.

As for artificial intelligence, it seems to me that the program is obviously an artificial intelligence program ... I don't see how else you could classify it. Here's where I begin to wonder if I'm misunderstanding your objection. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 00:00, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I found a quote that is even more on point: "The Chinese room argument ... assumes complete success on the part of artificial intelligence in simulating human cognition." That's from Searle's Mind: a brief introduction (2004), p. 63. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 07:34, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Simulating a computer. I'm not sure I appreciate the distinction between "following a program" and "simulating a computer executing a program" because a computer is, after all, just a device that follows the instructions in the program. There are other ways to phrase this. We could try these:

• "... in which a man in a room does exactly the same things that the CPU of a computer would do if it were executing a program."
• "... in which a man in a room executes a computer program by hand, using exactly the same steps that a computer would."
• "... in which a man in a room executes a computer program by hand, in exactly same way that a computer would (albeit much slower)."

Do you have another suggestion?

They key point I would like the reader to pick up on is that the man is doing exactly what the computer would do. (Technically, he does what the CPU of a computer would do.) I think this saves the reader a lot of trouble if he understands this right away. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 00:30, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Summing up. Anyway, sorry to have written so much about this. If you think I've failed to answer your objections, feel free to reply above (in-between) so we can keep the threads readable.

This introduction is difficult to write, because, on the one hand, I really want it to avoid any jargon and be clear to a non-technical reader, and on the other hand, I really, really, REALLY want to help the reader to avoid the most obvious misunderstandings about the Chinese Room, namely (1) I want them to get that the room is exactly like a computer, so whatever is true about the room, is true about computers in general. (2) The chinese room argument does not prevent AI researchers from building all those nifty and helpful robots that we've read about it science fiction. I think there are a lot of really bad Chinese Room replies that are motivated by a misunderstanding of one of these points. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 00:30, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

An argument against artificial intelligence

I changed a sentence in the lead paragraph. The Chinese room is widely seen as an argument against the claims of AI, as opposed to the practice of AI. Clarification of an ambiguous assertion. ( Martin | talk • contribs 15:28, 7 July 2010 (UTC)) I see that there is an attribution of this formulation to Larry Hauser. Certainly this is not sufficient reason to include an imprecise phrase in a lead paragraph. Is Searle against AI in toto? ( Martin | talk • contribs 15:47, 7 July 2010 (UTC)) I suppose that the phrase, as it was, could have been construed correctly to mean that "the Chinese Room is widely seen as an argument against the claim of the achievement of manufactured intelligence", but it seems to me that many people would have thought that the phrase "against artificial intelligence" meant "opposing AI", and that a clarification is helpful.( Martin | talk • contribs 16:04, 7 July 2010 (UTC))

I like your fix. It's more precise and the paragraph as a whole makes it very clear that Searle's argument isn't saying AI's goals are unachievable. (I think there is a huge group of readers who think that Searle is saying this. It doesn't help that Kurzweil has adopted and popularized the term "strong AI" to mean something different.) ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 18:36, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

The same way, machine, and behavior

The lead says: "The argument applies only to machines that execute programs in the same way that modern computers do and does not apply to machines in general." This is not clear:

• What is the "same way". Are not computers equivalent to Turing machines, except for the infinite capacities? Is that the "way" you mean? A program is an algorithm. The man is executing the algorithm in the "same way" as a PC.
• Why say "The argument applies only to machines that ..." By machine, you seem to exclude humans. Do you mean to? There is nothing in the argument that refers to machinery. It is meant, I think, to apply to any black-box of any implementation.
• The Chinese Room argument refers to behavior, not to implementation; to output, not to hardware. For example, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, reading a letter from President Lincoln to the House, sounded intelligent. He may have been, or he may not have been.

( Martin | talk • contribs 16:19, 7 July 2010 (UTC))

Searle explicitly states that the brain is a type of machine and therefore the argument does not apply to machines in general. He says that in order to understand, a machine must have the "causal powers" that are required to produce intentionality. He is pretty nonspecific about what these causal powers are, but he is clear that they can't come from simply executing a program. Looie496 (talk) 17:42, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

• Yes, by "the same way", I mean that his argument only applies to the aspects of the room that implement a Von Neumann machine (i.e. equivalent to a Turing machine). I feel strongly that the introduction should not use terms like "Turing machine", etc., without defining them. It must be clear to the general reader. "The same way" is described more explicitly in the new section "Computers vs. machines vs. brains".
• No, I'm not excluding humans. Searle believes that humans beings are machines. But this is a fine point that is covered in the section below.
• Judging by your earlier posts, I think this is the point that you may be misunderstanding. The Chinese Room is not a black box. That's the whole point of the Chinese Room. Black-box functionalism thinks it can define mental phenomena by looking only at the inputs and outputs (of the various subsystems). Searle is arguing a against this idea. The Chinese room argument asks the reader to look inside the box. The Chinese room is the opposite of a black box. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 19:03, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

It is very hard to be clear, I see. ( Martin | talk • contribs 20:06, 7 July 2010 (UTC))

Ah, yes, it isn’t a black-box. I used the term because it is associated with behaviorism, where people care about the behavior of a box and not the contents. The Touring Test is about behavior, only. But that term, black-box, is not essential to anything I said. ( Martin | talk • contribs 21:41, 7 July 2010 (UTC))

You say “The argument applies only to machines that execute programs in the same way that modern computers do and does not apply to machines in general.” Let’s say that next to this Chinese Room #1 there was a Mystery Room #2, and it behaved exactly as Searle’s Chinese Room #1 behaves. Would Searle say that his argument applied to Room #2 as well, without looking inside the room? Yes he would: He would say it may, or it may not, be intelligent. So his argument does not apply only to “machines that execute programs in the same way that modern computers do”, but to any object where all you know is the behavior. ( Martin | talk • contribs 21:52, 7 July 2010 (UTC))

No, Searle wouldn't. If there was a second room, behaving the same way, Searle would say that he was not able to tell if the room was displaying intelligence or not. Only by looking inside the room would Searle be able to make a determination.

I think what you might be doing is conflating the general argument against functionalism with the specific argument. To make the general argument work, Searle had to find a counter example, which is what he proposed with the Chinese Room. The counter example only applies to a specific system, but the general argument against functionalism works on all systems. Thus in the case you describe, the general argument would hold - we can't say that either room is intelligent - but the specific argument only holds for the first room, or any system which operates the same way. - Bilby (talk) 23:16, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Searle's argument would not apply to Mystery Box #2. It could contain a Chinese speaking person, in which case Searle would agree the system would have intentionality (namely, the Chinese speaker's intentionality).

Searle is arguing against behaviorism. The Turing test is (basically) behaviorist. The Chinese room is intended to show the Turing test is inadequate. The article says that believing the Turing test is adequate is part of Strong AI. Maybe the article should make this more clear. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 01:42, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah! Here we disagree! I agree that the Mystery Room #2 could contain a Chinese speaker, but I take Searle's argument to apply to Room #2 in spite of its surprise implementation: I think he would say that you cannot claim that Room #2 understands Chinese based on its behavior. You must base that claim on something else, such as opening the door.

I agree with your second point, naturally, but my comments were intended to support the idea that implementation is not the thrust of the Chinese Room argument; anti-behaviorism is. Output not hardware. References to computers or to Turing machines are not crucial to the article. The Turing Test, yes.

I am assuming that at least some AI people assert that if a machine passes the Turing Test, it is as real a mind as it makes sense to talk about. I also assume that this is something that Alan Turing did not claim, and even if he did, on what basis? ( Martin | talk • contribs 19:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC))

Turing was responding to the general problem of defining intelligence. As it was impossible, or seemingly impossible, to offer a definition, he instead offered a test that relied on an intuitive approach, replacing the question "can machines think?", (which is intrinsically tied up in concerns about how "thinking" should be defined), with the more practical "can machines pass the imitation game?" Turing doesn't make it clear whether or not a machine that passes the game really is intelligent, although others, such as Harnard, have noted that Turing probably isn't making the claim that a machine that passes the test can think, so much as that it acts as if it can. Thus I'm not sure that I would ascribe functionalism to Turing, so much as say that Turing's approach suits functionalism.

I disagree that the thrust of Searle's argument was anti-behaviourism. The thrust was anti-digital-computer-instantiating-a-program-is-sufficient-for-thought-ism. :) Thus he wouldn't try to apply his argument directly to room, #2, as he could only do that if he knew how it operated. - Bilby (talk) 01:19, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, at least that clarifies the type of quote that you are looking for from Searle: anti-behavioral. But I think that he had the man emulate an AI program running in a digital computer only because that is the configuration that exhibited the behavior that the claim of intelligence was being made for. ( Martin | talk • contribs 06:04, 9 July 2010 (UTC))

I be darned. Searle's argument is not a flat-out "behavior isn't enough" argument. It's this syntax vs semantics stuff. He says a few little behavioral things, but I think I missed the boat, or one of the boats. I'm ... shocked. ( Martin | talk • contribs 11:01, 9 July 2010 (UTC))

Some anti behaviorism: Searle on YouTube[1]( Martin | talk • contribs 11:54, 9 July 2010 (UTC))

Bilby, you say above <No, Searle wouldn't. If there was a second room, behaving the same way, Searle would say that he was not able to tell if the room was displaying intelligence or not.> Here we disagree, which is good! I actually agree with everything you say, except the first three words <No, Searle wouldn't>. I think that Searle's argument is that behavior does not necessarily imply intelligence. So I say Yes, that his argument would apply to Room #2, no matter what the implementation is. But you say that his argument is that computers are not intelligent, so you say No, his argument would not apply, because he doesn't know if it is a computer. We disagree on what his claim is, not on whether it is true or false, as I just now realize that you noted right above this. And so many people claim that the Chinese Room is a digital computer, so no sense pointing out that it isnt digital.( Martin | talk • contribs 06:26, 9 July 2010 (UTC))

Ah, now I see where the misunderstanding was. As Bilby pointed out, it's an anti-computationalism argument, not an anti-behaviorism argument. (Although, if accepted, it also defeats behaviorism.) Here's a handy chart.

Can it "understand" Chinese?	Chinese speaker	Chinese speaker's brain	Chinese room with the right program	Computer with the right program	Black box with the right behavior	Rock
Dualism says	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Searle says	Yes	Yes	No	No	No one can tell	No
Functionalism and computationalism (i.e. "strong AI") say	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No one can tell	No
Behaviorism and black box functionalism say	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
AI (or at least, Russell, Norvig, Turing, Minsky, etc) says	Yes	Yes	Don't care	Close enough	Doesn't matter	No

All the fuss is about the big fat "No" in column 4, at least in my view anyway. Searle is saying there is no possible computation that would give a machine consciousness, therefore computationalism is false.

Talking about the the theory of computation and symbol processing is important for the article, because it shows how we get from column 3 to column 4. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 00:22, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

One more thought. Behaviorism is not really a going concern in the philosophy of mind these days. It was pretty soundly routed in the 1960s by Chomsky and the birth of cognitive science, etc. Computationalism, functionalism and "computer functionalism" are the most popular positions held today. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 00:30, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your efforts. Yes I was listening to a discussion of behaviorism this morning, and it doesn't do well with things like the theatre, or people who believe that it is going to rain, but like their tools rusty. ( Martin | talk • contribs 03:19, 10 July 2010 (UTC))

For the AI people, computer with right program and Chinese Room with right program is the same case and should have the same answer, even though "don't care" may be the essence of their actual answer. ( Martin | talk • contribs 12:00, 10 July 2010 (UTC))

FWIW, here is Searle's report of Jerry Fodor's comment on column 4. 1 min audio( Martin | talk • contribs 19:06, 10 July 2010 (UTC))

That's very reassuring. The stuff I just added made exactly the same point; namely that "the Chinese Room is Turing complete computer." We could almost use that as a source for that section. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 01:37, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to add a slight caution here. The original version of the Chinese room described in the BBS article was only supposed to be able to run one of Roger Schank's programs that supposedly explain how story-understanding works, not anything like passing the Turing test. It was only in response to objections that Searle ramped up to a Turing-class simulation -- even then it's not totally clear that he wanted to go that far. Also I had better point out that Turing completeness has nothing to do with the Turing test -- let's avoid confusion on that point. Looie496 (talk) 02:26, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, these are two different points. You seem to be talking about the Turing test and, in that audio file, Searle is talking (obliquely) about Turing completeness; he says it's "laughable" that Fodor didn't notice that the Chinese Room is (essentially) a Turing machine. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 04:21, 11 July 2010 (UTC)