🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct15.174237.1730@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In article <7708@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

>>Or consider all the people who express the systems reply as "the
>>system understands".  This is a minor detail, but what are people
>>thinking when they say it?  Are they thinking `a la McDermott
>>that the reason for saying the system understands would be the 
>>theory used to construct it?  If so, why didn't they say so?
>
>Why should they say so?  This is a natural implicit assumption.  Searle
>allows us to assume that a suitable system exists, so it is natural
>to implicitly assume that this system has the "right" functional
>organization.

That doesn't show the system understands, only that it understands
_if_ this theory about functional organization is correct.

Sure, what people often mean by "the system understands" is "Look,
Searle, our claim is that the _system_ understands, not that the CPU
does."  This is a version of the system reply that I agree with.  But
I've heard a lot of people discuss the CR without making the connection
to functionalism that you suggest and without responding in the way
they would if that was their point.  Indeed, some disagree with Searle
but think the systems reply isn't enough.  It's far from clear that
everyone is thinking along these functionalist lines.

-- jd