In <3785C5C5.595B4A03 at zedat.fu-berlin.de> Wolfgang Schwarz
<wschwarz at zedat.fu-berlin.de> writes:
>>>Moin,
>>"F. Frank LeFever" wrote:
>>>> Definitions are neither plausible nor implausible.
>>sure, sorry.
>I meant: It seems plausible to me that what we usually mean when we
>speak of intelligence is some functional property.
- - - - - - - -(snip) - - - - - - - - - -
>The whole issue seems to depend on what is meant with "understanding".
>In a functional sense the Chinese room does understand. In the sense
>in which the term is commonly used, it doesn't, because understanding
>a question in this sense requires concious thinking about it, i.e.
>grasp of its semantical content.
>- - - - - - - -(snip)-- - - - - - - -
This is a good example of "defining" a term by reference to another
undefined term ("passing the buck"). "Grasp" means what? What is it
that "grasp" means that transcends what the Chinese room has done?
Granted that Searle may not refer to a homunculus in the sense of a
little "thinker" within the thinker (I don't know; I have made no
effort to be familiar with his entire corpus; indeed, not. even with
more than a small sample of it--I've heard him speak and read one or
two articles), but clearly he seems to think there is SOMETHING "in
there" (even if it is 90% of the brain circuits or even 100% of them)
which in principle (i.e., not empirically, but a priori) CANNOT be "in"
a computer.
I think "grasp" is a concept right at the heart of this mystical
belief, and only if it is defined explicitly can we meaningfully
discuss whether anything other than an organic brain CAN "grasp"
anything, or investigate this possibility (it must be a CONCEPTUAL
possibility before we can even imagine investigating it empirically).
For "semantic content", I can offer some approximations of what MIGHT
be the intended definition, based on historical usage. In my undergrad
(philosophy major) days, "semantics" was that branch of semiotics which
dealt with relating symbols to objects. In its neuropsychological
usage, "semantic networks" are the interrelations among semantic
elements, e.g. associations among different sensory aspects of our
experience with a given object, among these and different aspectts of
our activities involving these objects, etc., etc.
We are gradually developing some empirical data relevant to this
concept (e.g. the sort of human lesion studies described by Elizabeth
Warrington, my speaker at the NYNG/NY Academy of Sciences annual
lecture last Noovember). Although this is out of my area, I understand
there are some coomputer modeling efforts along this line also.
F. Frank LeFever, Ph.D.
New York Neuropsychology Group
