🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <12679@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Stevan Harnad) writes:
>record, although his Sci. Am. paper was not the most cogent version
>of Searle's position, I don't think the Churchland rebuttals work,
>so Searle's Argument comes out on top again.

 *see below*

>Searle's the one who's TESTING that hypothesis and answering that question;
>and the Chinese-Room thought-experiment shows that the hypothesis fails
>the test and the answer is no! 

According to the Searleans, but ...

>It is the proponents of the "systems
>reply" -- which merely amounts to a reiteration of the hypothesis in
>the face of Searle's negative evidence -- who are begging the question.

If all they were doing was reiterating the hypothesis, then, of course,
they would be begging the question.  But they aren't.  Instead they (and
I am one of them) are simply saying that Searle's perspective on the 
question is flawed and therefor he has no negative evidence.  (BTW, to
beg the question they would have to hold that the system was indead 
thinking without giving reasons for believing that it was.  It is very
possible, however, to give the systems reply, "If it is the case that
it is not Searle, but the system as a whole that were thinking, then
Searle's lack of knowledge of what he was a part of is not surprizing,"
without actually claiming that "We KNOW that the system would be thinking,"
and thereby begging the question.  Alternately, reasons could be given for
believing that the system was thinking - a question answered is not a 
question begged.)

>By the way, in endorsing the systems reply in principle, as you do
>(apparently only because of its counterintuitiveness, and the fact that
>other counterintuitive things have, in the history of science, turned
>out to be correct after all),

 *see below*

>you leave out Searle's very apt RESPONSE
>to the counterintuitive idea that the "system" consisting of him plus
>the room and its contents might still be understanding even if he
>himself is not: He memorizes the rules, and henceforth he IS all there
>is to the system, yet still he doesn't understand Chinese. 

Ah, but why should he understand what he is doing?  Why is his perspective
magical (or ideal, perfect, prefered, etc.)?  His perspective has not
changed, only the little bits of paper and pencil have gone away.  The 
system is riding atop his conscious, english-speaking level.  Why should
he have greater access to that than he does to the lower levels of his
mind's operation?  Can Searle tell you through introspection how he calls
up memories?  Can he tell you how it is that he learns?  He has not access
to these other levels of his mind's activity, why this one.  This is what
Searle fails to mention in his very un-apt response, and so it, like his
original argument, fails.

>(And I hope
>you won't rejoin with the naive hackers' multiple-personality gambit at
>this point, which is CLEARLY wanting to save the original hypothesis at
>any counterfactual price: There is no reason whatsoever to believe that
>simply memorizing a bunch of symbols and symbol manipulation rules and
>then executing them is one of the etiologies of multiple personality
>disorder!)

Of course not, we're not talking about multiple personality disorders here.
*see below*

>As to the speed factor: Yes, that is one last holdout, if it is in
>fact true that Searle could never pass the Chinese TT in real time. But
>that's at the price of being prepared to believe that the difference
>between having and not having a mind is purely a function of speed!

There is really no reason for me to go on.  If the Chinese room has not
made it this far, no rebuttals of the Churchland's arguments will save it
now.  I did want to mention, however, that I agree with this point.  As I
asked in a recent article, why would anyone believe that thinking and not
thinking is purely a function of speed?

>light, only it wasn't visible, one CANNOT say that very slow
>symbol-manipulation is still thinking only it's... what?
>"Unthinkable?" You took the words out of my mouth.

Very rude, sticking words into their mouths like that just so you
could accuse them of having made your point for you.  *see below*

>Stevan Harnad

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
What follows is a general flame about the tactics used by Hard-core-
Searleans in making their points.  It does have some slight value to
those of you who are not terribly convinced by the logic used by Searleans
but come away with a feeling that they may be right.  This is what all
those *see below* markers were about.

Starting with Searle himself in his now famous (for some reason) paper,
Hard-core-Searleans have appearantly found mere logic to be insuficient
to sway others to their cause, and have resorted to psychological tricks
and manipulations to win their points.

In said paper, Searle takes a number of steps to try to get the reader to
empathize with his position in the Chinese Room.  First off, he makes it
a CHINESE room, because he knows that few of the readers in his target
audience will know how to read Chinese, and that all things Chinese have 
an air of inscrutability to many westerners.  Many of us feel that we might
never learn Chinese through regular methods, to say nothing of having
unexplained rules in front of us.  Second, he pretends that the room would
be very simple, with tiny pieces of paper, etc.  "Of course no understanding
is going on here, understanding is complex," we are to tell ourselves.  
Third he places himself in the room so that he can write in first-person
how "I understand nothing of Chinese," etc.  It is like reciting a religeous
literagy just to read through the paper.  And there is more.

Other Searleans have followed suit.  Take a look at the *see below* markers
in this text.  They are places where Harnad threw rabbit punches.  Why they
are psychological attacks and not logical ones should be quite obvious.

Keith Gunderson, here at the U of MN is quite the same way.  His course here
on minds, brains, and machines seemed 90+% nonsense to try to get you to
accept his positions regarding the Searle-battle.  I went into the course
knowing a good deal about the subject matter, (having had a similar course
taught by an excellant prof. named Bill Robinson at Iowa State University)
and quite excited about getting the chance to argue the ins and outs of the
Searle-battle with one of his followers.  But instead I got someone who
would rather joke about Searle's opponents than to discuss rationally their
or Searle's positions.  He even went so far as to coin the word
"outCHURCHLANDish" and used it constantly to cut off discussion.
"You aren't really going to try to support that outCHURCHLANDish position,
are you?  Ha, ha, ha."  The rest of the class time was spent trying to
buddy-up to class members so that they would accept his positions without
really looking at them too hard.  Quite disgusting, all-in-all.

Dean Hougen

Credentials:  If any of you are interested, I do not pretend to be any
great philosopher.  I do have an undergradute minor in philosophy, and
I took enough courses there (including some terrific courses taught by 
the spectacular philosopher (and friend) E.D. "Doc" Klemke) to know the
difference between philosophy and some of the junk we have been given by
the Hard-core-Searleans.  (The meat of the Chinese Room argument is phil,
the dressing is garbage.)

Disclaimer:  I am afraid that I may have upset some people with this
article to the degree that for the first time I think I should include
a disclaimer, so here it is.  I speak only for myself.  I do not
represent any other person or organization in these writings, and
they should not be misconstrued as such.  I wouldn't have said it if I
didn't think it was true.
--
"They say your stupid, that you haven't got a brain.
 They say you'll listen to anything, that you're just bein' trained.
 (There's something inside your head.  Grey matter, grey matter.)
	- Oingo Boingo