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How can Searle know that native Chinese understand chinese?

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How can Searle know that native Chinese understand chinese?

jaoman
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Posted 03/31/08 - 11:28 AM:	#26
modularsky wrote: If you posit that it is some innately human characteristic, then what if we simply fabricate a human? If we create a carbon (forgive my pun) copy of a human being using completely artificial means, is this entity a human? You will be impelled to say no. Well, if we create an environment that simulates the earth 4.3 billion years ago, and then are somehow able to speed up evolution, are the life-like entities that result 'human'? I think once again you are impelled to say no, because at stake is whether or not 'consciousness' can be fabricated. Not at all. What is at stake is whether a computer simulation can fabricate consciousness, and then whether a consciousness created using different physical materials is anything like human consciousness. The mere fact that consciousness can be created is not in dispute. It's done all the time. We call it birth. We can grow a child in a test tube and it would still not matter, because all the physical paraphernalia of human consciousness will have been accounted for. On the other hand, suppose you take a baby out of a test tube and you ask it if it cares if its girlfriend fakes her orgasms and this newly born baby looks at you, blinks its chubby eyes, hiccups, and says “yes” in a hesitant voice. You'd be suspicious. If you didn't know he was a baby, no problem. But you do know, and babies shouldn't have this reaction because babies aren't supposed to have the frame of reference to speak, much less worry about sexual ego. Same thing with computers. If a box tells me that it's concerned about it's girlfriend faking her orgasm or a piece of steel tells me it feels nice when I rub my hands up and down over it's, pun, pipe, I become suspicious. So, if a box wants me to believe in its sexual ego, it has to break though the plain physical impossibility of the claim. What I'm arguing the Chinese room does is demonstrate that the standard the box wants to use is unacceptable because it doesn't prove anything. And while Searle may or may not want to extend the argument to that effect, the Chinese Room argument does does not, in fact, say anything against computers having computer consciousness any more than a rock having rock consciousness. Nor am I. However, at issue is a recognizable form of consciousness, even a human form. And it is that which is being proved inconclusive. Edited by jaoman on 03/31/08 - 11:33 AM
_____________________ "With no relation to class or social background, whether it suits them or not, people yearn for a dream. Sustained by a dream, hurt by a dream, revived by a dream, killed by a dream. And even after being abandoned by a dream, it continues to smolder from the bottom of one's heart... probably until the verge of death. A man should envision such a lifetime once. A life spent as a martyr to the god named "dream." - Kentaro Miura

modularsky
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Posted 04/01/08 - 08:47 AM:	#27
But now we are back where we started! You say that you would be "suspicious" if a baby answered yes to the previously mentioned questions. Well, do you think this means the baby does not have consciousness? Well, if it does not, then how does it gain consciousness? It is obviously not through biological means because it possesses that from birth. We cannot suppose a functionalist or behaviorist approach (this would make us concede that a computer can have consciousness). Now, can something that is made of different materials than a human is have consciousness? Why not? Tell me where consciousness lies in the "brain" and why if you remove this part of the brain, consciousness ceases to exist. You are taking a closet reductive materialist approach to mind, which is ultimately untenable.
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jaoman
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Posted 04/01/08 - 09:54 AM:	#28
modularsky wrote: But now we are back where we started! You say that you would be "suspicious" if a baby answered yes to the previously mentioned questions. Well, do you think this means the baby does not have consciousness. We'd first have to examine the conditions of a talking newborn with a sexual ego. Since I'm fairly sure that never happens, I have to posit that this is not a fair challenge. Given that, there is no reason why consciousness cannot be a product of the baby's biology. modularsky wrote: Now, can something that is made of different materials than a human is have consciousness? Why not? Tell me where consciousness lies in the "brain" and why if you remove this part of the brain, consciousness ceases to exist. You are taking a closet reductive materialist approach to mind, which is ultimately untenable. I don't actually make that claim. I have no problem with the possibility of consciousness being produced by materials other than human, provided we understand consciousness. Simply pointing to something that has a property (that is, one property) of consciousness and saying, “Hey, I've got it!” seems like a stretch to me. Like I said, I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea of computer consciousness. I'm simply opposed to the groundless assertion that it in any way resembles our own, when all but one of the properties are distinct.
_____________________ "With no relation to class or social background, whether it suits them or not, people yearn for a dream. Sustained by a dream, hurt by a dream, revived by a dream, killed by a dream. And even after being abandoned by a dream, it continues to smolder from the bottom of one's heart... probably until the verge of death. A man should envision such a lifetime once. A life spent as a martyr to the god named "dream." - Kentaro Miura

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Posted 04/01/08 - 11:30 AM:	#29
but that is the entire point of Searle's exercise. I think that like most philosophical discussions, ours is a matter of disagreement over words (especially given how much importance we place on the importance of the single word 'consciousness'). I think some return to Searle's original exercise might clear some things up. If we recall, Searle did not want to establish whether or not the Chinese room possessed consciousness, but whether it 'understood' chinese. This, it is easy to see, bears directly on arguments concerning AI and this is why we have proceeded down this pathway. Searle thought that it was impossible for the Chinese room to possess understanding. Because it was merely following rules instead of intuiting answers to the questions it was posed, Searle reasoned, it did not possess understanding. But here we see that Searle is simply tossing the problem from one hand to the other--what constitutes 'intuiting'--and by extension, what constitutes 'intuition' (this brings us even closer to consciousness). In the end, Searle's (and yours, unless I am mistaken. Let's be clear though: I don't necessarily disagree with your conclusions) notion of understanding depends on this: any objections that at this point "understanding" and "intuition" are meaningless placeholders are dismissed out of hand because they DO exist, as this is a NECESSARY condition of being human, which is what we're all about in the first place - can we make a computer HUMAN. But this is just a fanciful way of saying that there is some je ne se qua about understanding that makes it at once non-physical but also existent. What is it?
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Posted 04/01/08 - 03:33 PM:	#30
modularsky wrote: Let's be clear though: I don't necessarily disagree with your conclusions) notion of understanding depends on this: any objections that at this point "understanding" and "intuition" are meaningless placeholders are dismissed out of hand because they DO exist, as this is a NECESSARY condition of being human, which is what we're all about in the first place - can we make a computer HUMAN. But this is just a fanciful way of saying that there is some je ne se qua about understanding that makes it at once non-physical but also existent. What is it? Hm, what is it? Some minor elaboration on Searle's Gedankenexperiment comes to mind... Suppose Searle is no longer in the room but has memorized all the rules of responding to Chinese statements (this is a well-known modification of the situation). Searle can walk around and is able to process the rules even for acoustic input, producing acoustic output - quite correct Chinese sounds. (Please excuse my feeble English...) Now Searle goes on a trip to China with a Chinese friend. They walk around in the countryside. Of course Searle get thirsty at some point (his Chinese friend is tougher). Luckily enough they come across a fountain which has a sign attached to it. This sign says something in Chinese, in RED writing. The friend says (conversation in perfect Chinese...): Hey Searle, in case you are thirsty, feel free to have a drink, it's OK. Searle (again, in Chinese, following the memorized script): Yep, if you say so, I understand I can drink from this fountain... But, for some reason, Searle hesitates. Since he doesn't understand Chinese, he is concerned about the red color of the signs and suspects it might be a warning. The friend (seeing that Searle is hesitating), tries to reassure him: hey, you don't seem to be able to read, but I tell you its OK. Searle must be quite confused now (and so is the friend who even doubts whether Searle understands anything). Even if Searle, or rather his script, is clever enough to recite the words of the sign and even refer to their meaning in his speech, he will never be able to overcome his doubts. Unless of course, his friend, with an inviting gesture, has a drink himself. ... My point might be weak, but do you see that understanding is something happening in the world we're in, the world in which we are thirsty or something, and not the linguistic "world" in which we only claim to be "thirsty"? Any kind of system that can't be thirsty cannot understand the concept of being thirsty. Understanding is something that evolved with creatures having bodily needs. And only where those needs can be satisfied, there is understanding. Nonsense?

jaoman
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Posted 04/02/08 - 10:04 AM:	#31
modularsky wrote: But this is just a fanciful way of saying that there is some je ne se qua about understanding that makes it at once non-physical but also existent. What is it? Searle would say, and I agree with him to this extent, that you are overly hasty in concluding it is non-physical. You are right in concluding that it is not a physical thing, but you skip a very crucial category in your jump to non-physical: physical property. Gravity, for example – gravity can be said to be at once non-physical but also existence. It is a property of the physical. And gravity is a property that depends on physical composition: two objects of the same size might have different gravity depending on the density of their components. Now Searle's philosophy postulates that consciousness (and all the mental bits that trace back to it) is such a physical property. According to Searle it emerges when the proper physical conditions are met – namely, biological conditions. His theory is that it is a universal law. I split from Searle on the last point. I like the physical property concept of consciousness; however, like with gravity, I think it is shaped, rather than brought out, by physical composition. I think we wouldn't be able to identify foreign consciousness if presented with it, but I think Searle makes too much of a leap in arguing that it is only there in brains. However, that disagreement is not altogether bearing on the answer to your question. It does deviate my take of the Chinese room from Searle though. Whereas he argues that Chinese room possess no understanding. I'm willing to concede that something is going on with the guy in the room, but it seems clear to me that that something remains uniform irregardless whether he is displaying World of Warcraft or passing the Chinese Turning test. The guy is aware of the card shuffle: Chinese room consciousness. Whether that is something we can recognize as consciousness, though, remains (as I've said) inconclusive.
_____________________ "With no relation to class or social background, whether it suits them or not, people yearn for a dream. Sustained by a dream, hurt by a dream, revived by a dream, killed by a dream. And even after being abandoned by a dream, it continues to smolder from the bottom of one's heart... probably until the verge of death. A man should envision such a lifetime once. A life spent as a martyr to the god named "dream." - Kentaro Miura

modularsky
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Posted 04/02/08 - 10:20 AM:	#32
I think I agree with both you and Rope, but only insofar as our conclusions do not conflict. In my mind it is less about "physical properties" and some-such than it is about the importance of the question itself. In the end, I do not think the distinction between "understanding" and "non-understanding" is so important. I fail to see why conceding that the room DOES understand Chinese is such a concession. We will always be able to point out aspects of consciousness that the room does not possess, and similarly we will be able to come up with ways for which to account for this. In the end I think it shows that there is a distinctly human aspect to understanding that no machine can be made to account for, but also there is no essence to understanding that would prevent us from coming up with a hypothetically "conscious" machine.
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jaoman
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Posted 04/02/08 - 01:03 PM:	#33
A hypothetically conscious machine is indeed possible, but it's too much of a consession for some people. A hypothetically conscious machine is Weak AI Theory, and neither Searle nor I disputes this. What is in dispute is Strong AI, which posits that we've got a conscious machine, no hypothetical about it.
_____________________ "With no relation to class or social background, whether it suits them or not, people yearn for a dream. Sustained by a dream, hurt by a dream, revived by a dream, killed by a dream. And even after being abandoned by a dream, it continues to smolder from the bottom of one's heart... probably until the verge of death. A man should envision such a lifetime once. A life spent as a martyr to the god named "dream." - Kentaro Miura

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Posted 04/17/08 - 04:13 PM:	#34
The Chinese Room argument is absurd. We are supposed to imagine a room full of slips which magically give perfect Chinese translations, and yet Searle counts on our intuition that a room could never understand Chinese. If a room can't understand Chinese, then how does it produce the slips with perfect translations on them? Searle basically argues: P: a room can't understand Chinese. P: there is a room which produces meaningful Chinese statements. C: the room can't understand Chinese, because it's a room, dummy! It's ridiculous. Where do these meaningful Chinese statements come from?
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Posted 04/17/08 - 04:28 PM:	#35
The room does not produce anything. The slips are already in the room, provided by a helpful programmer.
_____________________ "With no relation to class or social background, whether it suits them or not, people yearn for a dream. Sustained by a dream, hurt by a dream, revived by a dream, killed by a dream. And even after being abandoned by a dream, it continues to smolder from the bottom of one's heart... probably until the verge of death. A man should envision such a lifetime once. A life spent as a martyr to the god named "dream." - Kentaro Miura

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Posted 04/22/08 - 08:08 AM:	#36
If a programmer is feeding the slips into the room continuously, then the programmer understands Chinese. If the room is able to respond to novel questions without the supervision of the programmer, then the room clearly understands Chinese.
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jaoman
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Posted 04/22/08 - 09:47 AM:	#37
Well, the programmer does understand Chinese. However, there is no continuous feed. Why ought there be? All he needs to do is feed all the possible slips into the room before its locked down and the stage is set of intellectual misdirection.
_____________________ "With no relation to class or social background, whether it suits them or not, people yearn for a dream. Sustained by a dream, hurt by a dream, revived by a dream, killed by a dream. And even after being abandoned by a dream, it continues to smolder from the bottom of one's heart... probably until the verge of death. A man should envision such a lifetime once. A life spent as a martyr to the god named "dream." - Kentaro Miura

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Posted 04/22/08 - 11:15 PM:	#38
if the room as a system can talk exactly like a chinese speaker, we can conclude that the room incorporates all of the laws that dictate the chinese language. not only would the room have to produce correct syntax, it would also have to incorporate every past utterance in an entire conversation. it would have to produce different output to the same question if the place is different in the conversation. ('what are we talking about?' would have to be answered differently depending on context) so it would have to be functionally the same as a chinese speaker. searle tries to argue that since the rule book doesn't understand chinese and the person doesn't understand chinese, there is no understanding of chinese. but we're talking about the whole system. and the whole system incorporates every single rule of chinese speaking and has a coherent conversation with other chinese speakers. so the room must understand. if the room doesn't understand, then humans don't understand. if you split the brain into pieces, it's clear that each piece doesn't understand language, but that the sum of the pieces do. so either the room AND people don't understand, or they both understand.

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Posted 04/23/08 - 10:54 AM:	#39
dissonance put it quite nicely, but I'll reiterate anyway. jaoman wrote: Well, the programmer does understand Chinese. However, there is no continuous feed. Why ought there be? All he needs to do is feed all the possible slips into the room before its locked down and the stage is set of intellectual misdirection. The stage is set for intellectual misdirection, certainly; and Searle is center-stage. Since there are an infinite number of conversations that can occur in Chinese (or any language), the programmer can't just feed "all the possible slips" into the room. The programmer would need to program rules for responding in Chinese, but--here's the rub--if the rules were subtle and comprehensive enough to produce perfect Chinese, the rules (or the room) would necessarily constitute an understanding of Chinese. Searle basically argues (quite circularly) that because a room could never understand Chinese, if it's "programmed" well enough to converse perfectly in Chinese, there must be no real understanding (because, uh, a room could never understand Chinese--everyone knows that!). Now that is intellectual misdirection. So again I ask you: if a room can't understand Chinese, then how does it produce the slips with perfect translations on them? You can say that the programmer "produces" the slips, but obviousy he can't produce all possible slips, so there needs to be some rule for slip-generation. At this point, the room is in fact producing the slips. So how does it do it so well if those rules don't constitute understanding?
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Posted 04/23/08 - 01:35 PM:	#40
Searle's argument touches on epistemological problems, I believe, in the following way. Searle's argument intends to show that the ability to translate from one language into another is not sufficient to claim the object that performs the procedure as intelligent as "intelligent." And there are good reasons to believe that: "The cat is on the mat." "一隻貓在草蓆上面." Now, there are two things to consider. Did I translate this sentence with my knowledge of Chinese and English, and then make a correlation between the structures such that the "picture" or "state of affairs" both intend to portray are near-identical, OR did I just insert the English into some English-Chinese translation software and cut and paste the sentence without any knowledge of Chinese at all? The answer is that you can't know for sure (unless you know about me), and nothing of the content of the translations (e.g. their accuracy to each other) will suffice to tell you. If that's the case, then you must base "intelligence" with a language on something different, but there is a HUGE problem with this method, because it seems perfectly feasible for someone to create a machine perfectly sophisticated that can outline models visually, interpret them, and then talk of states of affairs in both languages. But does that make the machine finally intelligent? With only behavioral criteria, there will eventually have to be a point when we show that robots and humans have equal capacities, and if we still refuse to accept robots as intelligent when all of the behavioral criteria are met, we will either have to determine some other legitimate criteria that distinguishes "intelligence" from "mere symbol-mongering." To do otherwise is just anthropic bias.
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