kube%cogsci@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU (Paul Kube) (07/21/86)
Pat Hayes <PHayes@SRI-KL> in AIList V4 #169: >re: Searle's chinese room >There has been by now an ENORMOUS amount of discussion of this argument, far >more than it deserves. Pat is right, for two reasons: the argument says nothing one way or the other about the possibility of constructing systems which exhibit any kind of behavior you like; and the point of the Chinese Room argument proper--that computation is insufficient for intentionality-- had already been made to most everyone's satisfaction by Block, Fodor, Rey, and others, by the time Searle went to press. (The question of the sufficiency of computation plus causation, or of the sufficiency of neurobiology, are further issues which have probably not been discussed more than they deserve.) >... ultimately >whether or not he is right will have to be decided empirically, I >believe. Searle thinks this too, but it's not obvious what the empirical decision would be based on. Since behavior and internal structure (by hypothesis), and material (to avoid begging the question), are no guide, it would seem that the only way to tell if a silicon system has intentional states is by being one. The crucial empirical test looks disturbingly elusive, so far as the brain-based scientific community is concerned. > When the robots get to be more convincing, let's >come back and ask him again ( or send one of them to do it ). Searle, of course, has committed himself to not being convinced by a robot, no matter how convincing. But some elaboration of this scenario is, I think, the right picture of how the question will be answered (and not `empirically'): as increasingly perfected robots proliferate, socio-political mechanisms for the establishment of person-based rights will act in response to the set of considerations present at the time; eventually lines will be drawn that most folks can live with, and the practice of literal attribution of psychological predicates will follow these lines. If this process is (at least for practical purposes) unpredictable, then only time will tell if Searle's paper will come to be regarded as a pathetically primitive racist tract, or as an enlightened contribution to the theory of the new order. Paul Kube kube@berkeley.edu ...ucbvax!kube