Definitions are neither plausible nor implausible. They are arbitrary.
They are useful or not useful. They are explicit or not, are shared
or not, etc. Explanations are plausible or implausible. Once you have
defined your terms, so we know what it is that you are trying to
explain, then your explanation may be evaluated as to its plausibility.
The famous argument which you say Searle has "on his side" is simply
another example of a profound intellectual dishonesty. Yes, it would
be "odd" to say that the fellow in that room "understood" the questions
or answers, but it is dishonest to neglect to say that this is a
metaphore for a primitive concept of brain function: somewhere in
there, there is a little man who "uses" all the information being piped
in to him, i.e., who does the "thinking", who is "conscious".
Obviously, the ROOM (with the little man's help) understands Chinese
very well.
Searle, of course, will simply say "if it's not a little man, it can't
be conscious, and it can't really understand, no matter HOW much it
seems to". Well, maybe so, maybe no; but there is no a priori reason
(other than unexamined mental habit) to believe so, nor any empirical
reason to do so.
F. Frank LeFever, Ph.D.
New York Neuropsychology Group
In <37846544.15051A6D at zedat.fu-berlin.de> Wolfgang Schwarz
<wschwarz at zedat.fu-berlin.de> writes:
>>>salut,
>>"F. Frank LeFever" wrote:
>>> Let me pluck this one thing from the romantic rhapsody: I think I
see
>> something like the scandalously dishonest use of an implicit (never
>> explicitly defined) concept of "consciousness" (maybe not even a
>> concept, maybe just a sentimental bias) pervading that new growth
>> industry, symposia on "brain and consciousness" (Searles, et al.)
>[...]
>> He seems to be saying, "you can't analyse or duplicate intelligence,
>> because you just can't. I don't care how intelligent it seems to
be,
>> if it's not natural intelligence, it really isn't!" And then he
goes
>> on about how wonderful it all is.
>>*lol*
>I somehow agree with you on that point. But certainly it's not that
>easy.
>Searle has some famous arguments on his side, e.g. the chinese room
>argument [1]:
>Briefly, imagine someone who understands no Chinese being confined in
>a room with a set of rules for systematically transforming strings of
>symbols to yield other strings of symbols. As it turns out, the input
>strings are Chinese questions, and the output strings Chinese answers.
>Nevertheless it would be odd to say that the person in the room
>understood any of the questions or answers.
>Therefore, rule-governed syntactic manipulation of symbols is not
>sufficient for understanding.
>>Anyway, I think the most plausible definitions of intelligence are
>functional definitions, and there is no a priori reason to doubt that
>some machine could perform the necessary functions. After all, the
>Chinese room (including the person in it) is an intelligent system,
>whatever else is missing.
>>As for consciousness, it seems that one just begs the question if one
>seeks a functional definition. The difference between a conscious
>system and a system that lacks consciousness is in the first place not
>that the former can perform actions which the latter can not, but that
>"there is anything it is like to be" the former system, but not the
>latter [2].
>This is of course far from a definition.
>>cu,
>>Wolfgang.
>>[1] John Searle: "Mind, Brains, and Programs", Behavioral and Brain
> Sciences 3 (1980):417-457
>[2] Thomas Nagel: "What is it like to be a bat?", Philosophical
> Review 83 (1974):435-450
> Ned Block: "On a confusion about a function of consciousness",
> Behavioral and Brain Sciences 18 (1995):272-287
> David Chalmers: "Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness",
> Journal of Consciousness Studies 2 (1995):200-219
>>--
>homepage: http://www.wald.org/wolfgang>"Wo kaemen wir hin, wenn jeder sagte: 'wo kaemen wir hin?' und keiner
>ginge, um zu sehen, wohin wir kaemen, wenn wir gingen?"
>
