engelson-sean@cs.yale.edu (Sean Engelson) (01/10/90)
An interesting point that I don't think anyone has mentioned is the following. Searle says that since he says he does not understand Chinese, he in fact does not. To the objection that perhaps he does understand Chinese without knowing it, he replies that he is the absolute expert on his understanding or lack thereof. If we accept this as a premise, then by the same logic, suppose we put the question "Do you understand Chinese?" to the Chinese room (in Chinese, of course). We naturally get the answer "Yes", and thus conclude, by Searle's reasoning, that the room *does* in fact understand Chinese. This fact implies that Searle's lack of understanding in no way prevents there from being understanding going on, whether due to the "systems reply" being correct, or whatever; this depends on the definition of understanding used. In any case, Searle is hoist on his own petar, since his argument has an entirely self-contained contradiction. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sean Philip Engelson, Poet Errant Make your learning a fixture; Yale Department of Computer Science Say little and do much; Box 2158 Yale Station And receive everyone with New Haven, CT 06520 a friendly attitude. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Esperanto: metodo por krei paca mondo. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Theoretical physicist---a physicist whose existence is postulated, to make the numbers balance, but who is never actually observed in the laboratory. --Joseph Voros