Thursday, March 03, 2011


""""".... as in the original Chinese room, the symbols are meaningless to Watson, which understands nothing. The reason it lacks understanding is that, like me in the Chinese room, it has no way to get from symbols to meanings (or from syntax to semantics, in linguistic jargon). The bottom line can be put in the form of a four-word sentence: Symbols are not meanings.

Of course, Watson is much faster than me. But speed doesn't add understanding. This is a simple refutation of the idea that computer simulations of human cognition are the real thing.

If the computer cannot understand solely by manipulating symbols, then how does the brain do it? What is the difference between the brain and the digital computer? The answer is that the brain is a causal mechanism that causes consciousness, understanding and all the rest of it. It is an organ like any other, and like any other it operates on causal principles.

The problem with the digital computer is not that it is too much of a machine to have human understanding. On the contrary, it is not enough of a machine. Consciousness, the machine process that goes on in the brain, is fundamentally different from what a computer does, which is computation. Computation is an abstract formal process, like addition......""""
Yes, but.......when does simulation become indistinguishable from the ding an sich, Doktor Searle?  Watson probably did not feel anything like the thrill of victory--as far as we know--but it's certainly possible Watson has his victory recorded in the database. How do we know Watson doesn't know he won?  Fire him up, ask him--did you win the Jeopardy match ?  I imagine he would say.. Yes. Watson might conceivably dream at times but humans simply can't perceive it. Of course Watson's hardly human but a prototype of a sort, perhaps.  A baby Replicant .(can we say  PK Dick and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep for  $1000, Alex).

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