🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec12.073435.677@cs.su.oz.au> danny@cs.su.oz.au (Danny) writes:
>In article <Bz26Fy.ICq@gabriel.keele.ac.uk> csa33@keele.ac.uk (H.S. Nwana) writes:
>
>>Searle started with his Chinese room argument, then to the Chinese gym, because
>>others attempted to prove a weakness in that, then to whatever his arguments now are? 
>>Doubtless, he will dream up "better" arguments to support his belief.
>
>Doubtless :).  My argument is that he is driven to do this because he 
>accepts certain beliefs (that machines can't think) as axioms and
>therefore has to try and justify them.

"Machines can't think" is explicitly *not* one of the axioms in
Searles' argument.  He believes that machines can think, since he
believes that brains are machines (he states this explicitly).  What
he *does* believe is that machines can't think (or, more accurately,
possess semantics) purely on the basis of their formal structure, and
this belief is itself derived from the axioms I provided in another posting.

- michael