Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site spar.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!spar!baba From: baba@spar.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: Searle's Pearls Message-ID: <635@spar.UUCP> Date: Sat, 2-Nov-85 14:53:40 EST Article-I.D.: spar.635 Posted: Sat Nov 2 14:53:40 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 06:20:46 EST References: <2412@sjuvax.UUCP> <1779@watdcsu.UUCP> <2461@sjuvax.UUCP> <1810@watdcsu.UUCP> Distribution: net Organization: The Institute of Impure Science Lines: 35 > Let's carry the above a step > further, and have the man memorize a manual describing phonetic Chinese > instead of written Chinese, and have him follow the rules to generate > spoken responses to a *real* Chinese man who is talking to him. > Suppose, in the middle of the conversation, the phone rings. The > Chinese man answers the phone, frowns, hangs up, then walks over to the > rule-following man and says, in Chinese, "There's been a bomb threat. > We have to leave the building." The rule-following man responds in > Chinese, saying "Let's go." Then he sits and waits for the Chinese man > to say something else. > > One step further: the manual not only describes the Chinese language, > but uses some notation to represent sensory observations and movements > of the body. The man memorizes the manual and can carry out the rules > at the normal speed of somebody who really understands Chinese. > (Clearly he must be *very* talented.) Repeat the bomb threat scenario, > and he gets up from his chair and heads for the exit, but doesn't know > why he's leaving. There is no observable difference between > understanding and the lack thereof. > -- > David Canzi Indeed, following Wittgenstein, one can argue that the man in question most evidently *did* understand at least the sentence "we have to leave the building", even though he might not be able to identify the individual words within the sentence. Of course, a real human could eventually learn to isolate and recombine the individual words once he had seen them in a variety of contexts and associated with appropriately related "sensory observations and movements". Having studied Wittgenstein under Searle years ago, I think that Searle would maintain that it is precisely the isolation of language behavior from other behavior in the Chinese room that implies a lack of understanding. Baba