The Chinese Room - 60-Second Adventures in Thought (3/6)

[EmeraldSky33]

I tend to think that the Chinese Room and the man inside it, taken as one entity, DOES know Chinese. However, since the man does not have instantaneous access to the rules and the characters, he doesn't know Chinese. I'm with @sporg.

[Xzalander]

Personally, my logic is that a computer can only ever know what -we- already know. In the event it finds something we do not know, it will not be able to articulate what it was, requiring us to know about it first to articulate it for it.

[baltabeeb]

wtf is this?

[haikiri2011]

I think a computer can come to life with a program that keep always trying to find patterns and meanings with data, like sound, image or text. Than with those results he will build his concepts and never stop. Aways when something different aproach, he will do as we do. Just another one, a few diferences, not enough data to be upper some other main question and keep going... More and more knowledge, aways considerating all factors. No mistakes....

[saenmb]

I would refer to On intelligence by Jeff Hawkings if anyone would like to understand this question more

[baeronautics]

then how are some humans considered smart. So the only to make artificial intelligence by humans is by basically assembling cells by cells , organs by organs to make a smart functioning artificial intelligence?

[Wutwut1n1]

I'm discussing this in one of my philosophy classes and my teacher keeps taking Searle's side. I don't know if he does this because he needs to teach the rest of the class to understand, because he wants to piss me off, or because he's stupid.

[TheBiddleMan]

It depends what you define 'thinking' as. I believe computers can 'think', they receive input just like a human brain, and then transmit an output. Something distinctly human is lacking though in that process. Understanding and context. However, understanding and context is a product of computation, just far more complex than a computers. It has to do with the ways neurons are linked to eachother in related clumps. Much more to it than this of course, but comments must be short :)

[dojomojomofo]

They would need to define understanding before questioning it. Who's to say it's not a simple functional test of whether you can practically demonstrate an understanding of it? If a machine can be made to learn and apply all the appropriate rules, how is it failing that?

[danielearwicker]

I'm pretty sure none of my brain cells understand English. Each brain cell is a far simpler mechanism than the "book of rules" proposed in Searle's room. And yet the system comprised of my interconnected brain cells is able to respond to questions in English. And so it's back to the drawing board for Searle and his hopeless thought experiment. He hasn't concluded anything, but merely restated the mystery that needs to be explained: brains are mechanisms that think.

[EmeraldSky33]

@danielearwicker

YES. :-)

[glennbroadway]

This is stupid. The human is understanding the question and formulating a response - translating it into Chinese is the least taxing part of the job. Any old robot (or Google translate) convert English into Chinese - that doesn't test whether or not it understood the question.

[rollomaughfling]

Ignnores Asimov's "uncanny valley" as well.

[sporg]

With this one (unlike some of the others such as the twin 'paradox', where there are no accepted alternate explanations), the Chinese Room has been challenged many times. (For example, Searle makes it seem as though 'looking up the instructions' is a trivial task (therefore making the task of the person simple). In reality, one can argue that intelligence is actually embodied in this part of the task, and it's a HUGE part! So it's not a valid thought experiment...

[packe777]

@sporg Nevermind the Chinese Room, but Gregory Chaitin work's on Godel's theorem has finally buried all this positivist dogma of Dennett, Churchland and similar. The Omega number, or Chaitin's constant isn't computable at all. It is irreducible complex algorithm, that is true just by accident. I'ts compatible with Penrose's ORCH-OR, as the platonic information (pattern) embedded at the Plank scale. The implications are mind-boggling.

[IsraeliXdude]

Of course can, humans are the machines, and to the argument that if you communicate with computer you just communicate with a programmed which "simulate" that it understand, i mean WTF! aren't humans programmed? learning is programming, we just like machine/computer responding to information in correlative manner

[signedadam]

hay, robots are cool :D

[sharrynuk]

Poor representation of the thought experiment. You can probably squeeze big ideas into 60 seconds, but not with all those distracting animations and jokes at the same time. If I didn't already know the Chinese Room, I doubt this would have helped.

[robby102938]

@sharrynuk well I understood the message, and I dindn't know it before.