Re:The Chinese Room Argument
by ekiru on Saturday February 20, 2010 @08:49PM
(#1139907)
"Searle doesn't make an argument about formally equivalent Turing machines, he makes an argument about a person using an instruction book to manipulate strange characters."
In what way is a hypothetical person using "a book of instructions for manipulating the symbols (the program)" different from a universal Turing machine executing the same instructions? When Turing manually executed his computer chess program, how did this differ from having a computer execute it?
"It's a perfect trap for your intuition. You have an intuitive feeling that if you were to have a conversation in Chinese by following mechanical instructions from a book, you still wouldn't "really understand" Chinese."
I fail to understand how this portion of what you're saying disagrees at all with what I said. I don't really see the rest of what you say as disagreeing with what I said, but it is at least not identical to it.
In what way is a hypothetical person using "a book of instructions for manipulating the symbols (the program)" different from a universal Turing machine executing the same instructions? When Turing manually executed his computer chess program, how did this differ from having a computer execute it?
"It's a perfect trap for your intuition. You have an intuitive feeling that if you were to have a conversation in Chinese by following mechanical instructions from a book, you still wouldn't "really understand" Chinese."
I fail to understand how this portion of what you're saying disagrees at all with what I said. I don't really see the rest of what you say as disagreeing with what I said, but it is at least not identical to it.