🚀 go-pugleaf

I wrote:
-------
You mention three processes:  1) what AI programs do, 2) algorithmic
computing, and 3) human thinking.  However, there are at most two
distinct processes here.  That is, AI programs + hardware + some
intelligent being to interpret the results = algorithmic computing.
This is a basic concept.  There are no programs that run on computers
that are not algorithmic.

The question is whether 2 and 3 are equivalent.  The strong AI
position is that they are.  But the whole point of the Chinese Room
argument is that Searle can be doing something that falls in category
2 yet not be doing 3, AND can be aware of the fact that he is doing 2
and not doing 3.
-----

The second paragraph should have said:

The question is whether 2 and 3 are equivalent.  The strong AI
position is that they are.  It claims that if a computer system could
pass the Turing test, it would be doing 3 by doing 2.  Searle's
argument says that if he himself could pass the Turing test with a
system composed of rules in books, he would know that he is still not
doing 3.  If he is not, then what is?  Because his procedure with the
books and rules is equivalent in power to any algorithmic procedure
that could be executed on a computer, the same question applies to a
computer that could pass the Turing test.

-Fred Gilham    gilham@csl.sri.com