rathmann@cartan.UUCP (11/27/86)
> Ray Trent > 1) I've always been somewhat suspicious about the Turing Test. (1/2 :-) > > a) does anyone out there have any good references regarding > its shortcomings. :-| John Searle's notorious "Chinese Room" argument has probably drawn out more discussion on this topic in recent times than anything else I can think of. As far as I can tell, there seems to be no consensus of opinion on this issue, only a broad spectrum of philosophical stances, some of them apparently quite angry (Hofstadter, for example). The most complete presentation I have yet encountered is in the journal for the Behavioral and Brain Sciences 1980, with a complete statement of Searle's original argument, responses by folks like Fodor, Rorty, McCarthy, Dennett, Hofstadter, Eccles, etc, and Searle's counterresponse. People frequently have misconceptions of just what Searle is arguing, the most common of these being: Machines cannot have minds. What Searle really argues is that: The relation (mind:brain :: software:hardware) is fallacious. Computers cannot have minds solely by virtue of their running the correct program. His position seems to derive from his thoughts in the philosophy of language, and in particular his notion of Intentionality. Familiarity with the work of Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine, Austin, Putnam, and Kripke would really be helpful if you are interested in the motivation behind this concept, but Searle maintains that his Chinese room argument makes sense without any of that background. -michael