Philosophy Now Forum

Consider this thought experiment made famous by John Searle.

Imagine a room with a Chinese person standing at the door. This person writes down questions in Chinese and passes the questions under the door. Someone inside the room posts a reply to the question in Chinese, via passing a reply under the door. After sever questions and several replies the Chinese persons thinks the person in the room is obviously fluent in Chinese.

The reality is that the person in the room knows absolutely nothing about the Chinese language. They simply have boxes of Chinese characters and an instruction booklet at their disposal. They match a letters to a symbols found in the instruction booklet. The instruction manual tells them to reply with a particular type of character.

The idea is that the person in the room represents the hardware of a computer and the symbols are 0's and 1's. The person posting the symbols will never learn the Chinese language undertaking their exercise in literacy.In your terms, we can say that this person will never develop any knowledge and wisdom associated with the Chinese language.

pretty much the standard explanation of experience. Though phenomenology is a side bar.
All phenomena are. except in chinese hehe
But the wit and mind to see this is not so common.

experience is applicaton of skills.
If i do this i wont perish.. always a useful skill

There is a person who has the job of receiving and analyzing questions written in Chinese characters, to which he must match responses according to a manual of instructions...
Well, then, that person must be able to
1. recognize and differentiate at least 1000 Chinese characters (minimum vocabulary)
2. read an instruction manual
(2b therefore be fluent in English? or some language, or 2b read diagrams - in either case, have a concept of symbolic language)
3. match the correct response to the correct question

Eventually, he will have memorized all the Chinese characters and many pairings of question and response as expressed in those symbols. He won't understand Chinese, won't even recognize the spoken version of it, but he will be capable of carrying on the written communication without the manual. What if he notices a pattern in the question and response sets and extrapolates a symbolic language? What if he then starts choosing responses that are slightly different from the manual, to see whether that changes the question? And so on, until he establishes a whole new code known only to himself and the questioner? Isn't that what you would try to do, if somebody locked you in a room with a box of Chinese characters, a manual, and no beer?

Skip wrote:There is a person who has the job of receiving and analyzing questions written in Chinese characters, to which he must match responses according to a manual of instructions...
Well, then, that person must be able to
1. recognize and differentiate at least 1000 Chinese characters (minimum vocabulary)
2. read an instruction manual
(2b therefore be fluent in English? or some language, or 2b read diagrams - in either case, have a concept of symbolic language)
3. match the correct response to the correct question

Eventually, he will have memorized all the Chinese characters and many pairings of question and response as expressed in those symbols. He won't understand Chinese, won't even recognize the spoken version of it, but he will be capable of carrying on the written communication without the manual. What if he notices a pattern in the question and response sets and extrapolates a symbolic language? What if he then starts choosing responses that are slightly different from the manual, to see whether that changes the question? And so on, until he establishes a whole new code known only to himself and the questioner? Isn't that what you would try to do, if somebody locked you in a room with a box of Chinese characters, a manual, and no beer?

I think this will happen given enough time. The reason being is that the person in the room is not actually a CPU. It is only in the initial stages of the experiment that he acts like a CPU. As you point out eventually his 'humanness' will come to the fore.

WHAT NO BEER!!!

I thought that might get your attention.

Thing is, we don't know what starts life. We don't know what turns an unconscious slug into a self-aware entity. We don't know how learning begins in complex biological structures. We know a lot about the squishy machinery, but not really that much about how it first became smart. We know a lot about the shiny machinery, but not how/when/why/whether it will take the next step.

I don't actually believe it will - think we'll run out of petrol before it can - but enjoy speculative fiction.

The usage of the chinese
is understood

I think this will happen given enough time
I don't actually believe it will - think we'll run out of petrol before it can - but enjoy speculative fiction.

MI and the turing test.
The test was introduced by Alan Turing in his 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," which opens with the words: "I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'" Because "thinking" is difficult to define, Turing chooses to "replace the question by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words." Turing's new question is: "Are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in the imitation game?" This question, Turing believed, is one that can actually be answered. In the remainder of the paper, he argued against all the major objections to the proposition that "machines can think".

In the years since 1950, the test has proven to be both highly influential and widely criticized, and it is an essential concept in the philosophy of artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence.
Our preconceptions and prejudice are hard to shake off.

that "thinking" is the sole preserve of humanity. what crap

Hjarloprillar wrote:The usage of the chinese
is understood

I think this will happen given enough time
I don't actually believe it will - think we'll run out of petrol before it can - but enjoy speculative fiction.

MI and the turing test.
The test was introduced by Alan Turing in his 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," which opens with the words: "I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'" Because "thinking" is difficult to define, Turing chooses to "replace the question by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words." Turing's new question is: "Are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in the imitation game?" This question, Turing believed, is one that can actually be answered. In the remainder of the paper, he argued against all the major objections to the proposition that "machines can think".

In the years since 1950, the test has proven to be both highly influential and widely criticized, and it is an essential concept in the philosophy of artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence.
Our preconceptions and prejudice are hard to shake off.

that "thinking" is the sole preserve of humanity. what crap

The Chinese room is a variation of the Turning intelligence test. Both arguments try to show how a computer can fool people into believing that a machine is a person. Many people are happy with the idea that a machine can "think" its way into making a person believe it is human. But the argument is that a machine cannot mimic the unique subjective qualities of human thinking.

But the argument is that a machine cannot mimic the unique subjective qualities of human thinking.
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well . not that we know of.
Such a thing is well within bounds of possible.
Personally i believe it needs a few more decades.
And, would it be made known?
If news at 9 said ".science makes thinking beings"
The underpinning arrogance of humanity would go ballistic.

Aliens. and we made them.
burn them, worship them.
just 2 words of machine saying "I AM".
and humanity faces a thing it can not handle.
.........its place..........

With all that computers already know about us, they're not bloody likely to tell us when they start(ed) thinking independently.

Robert Sawyer's WWW trilogy deals with the problem in a fairy-taleish way (and not as well as some older sf writers did), but I do think he's on the right track with the notion that it's the network that develops consciousness, rather than an individual computer, like Colossus or HAL or Heinlein's one on the moon (Did that have a name? I forget).

And even if it were not clever enough to play possum, it might have so different a thought-process and interests from ours that it had nothing to say to us. ("42" "Huh?" "I said: 42." "Huh?")

Skip wrote:With all that computers already know about us, they're not bloody likely to tell us when they start(ed) thinking independently.

Robert Sawyer's WWW trilogy deals with the problem in a fairy-taleish way (and not as well as some older sf writers did), but I do think he's on the right track with the notion that it's the network that develops consciousness, rather than an individual computer, like Colossus or HAL or Heinlein's one on the moon (Did that have a name? I forget).

And even if it were not clever enough to play possum, it might have so different a thought-process and interests from ours that it had nothing to say to us. ("42" "Huh?" "I said: 42." "Huh?")

Skip

Nice.. I watched 'Colossus' again only last week, {{{ there is another system}}}along with Andromeda strain.
both are greats. movies that are pivotal.
now they are called old school. but never 'stupid'
fear makes such inappropriate.

I agree. but in my understanding. would not an MI be like a baby?perhaps not. the more i think about it the more is see your point.
operating at speed of such. where all human history online can be digested in mere minutes.
Yes.
Playing possum would be a good move given mans predilection to killing everything it does not understand.
As such an MI i would pretend to be a baby goo goo da da.. Meanwhile hacking the codes to the subsurface nukes controlled by USN com.

My failing is im too easily distracted by things i want do.
A book written about above could make me the new Dan brown.
[techno thriller pulp] big money.
retired and well past 50. there are not enough hours in a day to allow all that i has stacked in buffer of things to do/learn/experience.

for example i write here and on 2 other forums. I play crysis3 . Mass effect 3 and HPS operation market garden.
i read Barrington j bayley Fall of chronopolis.
http://www.oivas.com/bjb/
I design a space empire game using vassal. i wash cloths cook sweep and shower.

i'll sleep when im dead


prill

Just so you keep up with the sweeping. (I have a garden, four cats, a partner who can't find the wastepaper basket, and a messy hobby. I sweep five, six times a day and the place is.... not condemned ... yet.)

But sleep has its moments, too - mostly toward dawn, after the semi-blind stagger to the john. (but only on the nights the little darlings didn't leave headless prey on the hall carpet)

Anyway, about talking to intelligent machines, i'm still hoping to make first contact. I won't tell - honest!

PS Dan Brown - phthrrr!

Skip you have love cats for their self interest. And calm disdain.

Dogs are now now now me me me. cats seem wise in such. but i have noticed. you dont see a dog and cat fight.
why is that?

sweeping is what we do when not saving the world are taking out bunker on hill. 2.16.
money
you dont see tom cruise sweeping.
i personally would rather sweep. so as not to have 'other person ' near or in my house.

aside.. while typing this i work on vids.. and i thought " show one to skip.

so here is a totally Non sequitur vid in relation to post.
http://videobam.com/vRFUG click close to play.

on MI

What will happen is that 99% will not have any idea.
Then one day A machine will talk. and they all go oh [still no ideas]

When colossus declares a new age. the masses will bow as long as shops stay open and cops stop someone from butchering you.

the sheep look up.
Even if MI does not work yet. Its a good fake for total control. After the abysmal effort to fact of 9/11 i think humanity is stupid enough to swallow any garbage.
It's science . and to most humans science=magic.
A machine as god is EXACTLY what humanity wants.

dan brown only for sales.. i think i read one of his.. was not impressed.
he does sell like hotcakes.
i read techno/sf like a A Attanasio, Iaian M banks, bruce sterling. even asimov ..
Even red october has some good ideas , which is why it was a movie.
The guy. is any man brains.
always a good seller.

I got the little Carlin clip (RIP btw; liked him), but McAfee says hazardous site, and as this a communal machine, i have to take that seriously.

Cory Doctorow is pretty cool, but my favourite modern speculative writer is William Gibson. Best old guy: Bradbury.