You give it something, it does something with it, and then it gives you something back. — Michael

And what makes that meaningful?

Do you actually have anything meaningful to say about the difference between humans and computers? — Michael

Humans give meaning to symbols, not the other way around. What a computer computes is only meaningful to the degree it's meaningful to us. We built them, after all, to compute things for us.

1 + 1 = 2 is only meaningful to the extent that we give it the symbols meaning. Otherwise, it means nothing.

What does it mean for matter to be using symbols? What is it about a computer which results in use of symbols such that there is meaning?

Use gives meaning to symbols. — Michael

And an abstract Turing Machine can't be said to be using symbols, even if we wrote out the entire computation for being in grief, but a computer can, because it has electricity flowing through it between different parts?

Yes. Just as a human is made different from an abstraction by being made of matter. — Michael

So it is matter that gives meaning to symbols?

You're shifting the terms of understanding. If understanding is granted to the system for the accurate manipulation of the symbols, then human understanding is likewise granted for accurate manipulation of the symbols. It's not enough to have the symbols, one has to have the rules to manipulate the symbols. — Soylent

Right, and I'll accept that this is one notion of understanding, being that words can have multiple meanings. Siri knows how to tell me what the temperature outside is. "She" understands how to compute that result.

Searle, and perhaps you, seems to want to isolate the understanding of the Chinese Room participant from the entire system, which includes the set(s) of rules. Martha doesn't need to know the meaning of the output, because the meaning is supplied by the entire system and not a single part of it. — Soylent

But Searle's point is that it doesn't matter, because it's still just a form of symbol manipulation. He thinks we do something fundamentally different than following rules to manipulate symbols when we speak English or Chinese, although of course we are capable of computing symbols, albeit not usually as well as a computer.

Nobody is saying that abstract things can have real emotions. — Michael

Right, so what makes a computer different than an abstraction, like a Turing Machine (of which a computer is a finite realization)? Is it that the computer is made of matter instead of symbols?

I already told you that 1 means any individual thing in context of counting or sets. I'm sure someone else can provide a better mathematical definition. This can run kind of deep because we could get start debating the exact meaning behind the symbol which might lead to a universals vs nominalism debate.

How so? You just asked why a bunch of symbols can't have emotions if humans have emotions. I just told you that symbols are stand ins for something else, in this case emotion. A happy face isn't happy. It means happy.

If we're just going to accept that the humans experience emotions then why not just accept that the Turing machine does? — Michael

Because symbols are abstractions from experience. They stand in for something else. An emoticon isn't happy or sad or mad. It just means that to us, because we can be happy, or mad or sad.

Sure. And you asked how it's come to mean this thing. I pointed out that we're provided with some input (of which there may be many that resemble one another in some empirical way), e.g. "•" or "••", and are told what to output, e.g. "1" or "2". — Michael

Again, that's not what "1" or "+" or "2" means, at all.

What evidence shows that humans can form emotional bonds and grieve but that computers can't? You can't use science because science can only ever use observable behaviour as evidence, and the premise of the thought experiment is that the computer has the same observable behaviour as a human. — Michael

Okay, let's set aside empirical matters and just accept that humans do experience emotion. What about Turing machines? Can a Turing machine, in just its abstract form, experience grief? Does that make any sense?

What I mean is, say some brilliant mathematician/programmer defined the algorithm that some theoretical computer could use to compute being in grief, and wrote it down. Would that algorithm then experience grief? Let's say they pay someone to illustrate a Turing machine manipulating the symbols needed to compute the algorithm. Whole forests are cut down to print this thing out, but there it is. Are the symbols sad?

Then what does reference mean? — Michael

The mathematical symbol "1" means any item or unit ever, in the context of counting or sets. You can use it to denote any one thing.

If I made up some word, say "bluxargy", and then defined with some other made up words, what does it reference? It references nothing, so reference can't be symbol manipulation.

If it's not dogma then there's evidence. What evidence shows that the computer who says "I'm sorry" doesn't understand and that the human who says "I'm sorry" does? — Michael

Humans form emotional bonds and machines don't. Do you need some scientific literature to back this up? Humans also grieve when those bonds are broken and machines don't.

When the input is "•" the output is "1". When the input is "••" the output is "2", etc. — Michael

That's not what reference means at all.

No, not dogma. It's really absurd to maintain otherwise, unless you're invoking some altered version of the other minds problem in which I'm the only one not doing symbol manipulation.

But anyway, I'll try another approach which isn't about consciousness. Once we humans have an understanding of 1 + 1 (to use a trivial example), we can universalize it to any domain. A computer can't do that. It has to be programmed in different scenarios how to apply 1 + 1 to achieve whatever result.

Sure, the computer always knows how to compute 2, but it doesn't know how to apply addition in various real world situations without being programmed to do so.

Perhaps that we dogmatically believe that people understand but computers don't? — Michael

We understand that people are doing something more than manipulating symbols. When I say that I understand your loss, you take it to mean I can relate to having lost someone, not that I can produce those symbols in the right situation, in which case I'm just formally being polite. If a machine says it, it's understood that someone programmed a machine to say it in those circumstances, which might come off as incredibly cold and insensitive, or downright creepy (if it hits the uncanny valley). What we don't do is think that the machine feels our pain or empathizes.

It's the same with Siri telling me it's cold outside. It's cute and all, but nobody takes it seriously.

I might or I might not. — Michael

How would you not? Are you supposing that I have some condition where I can't experience pain or fatigue (I'm not aware that there are any humans immune to fatigue).

The problem with Searle's argument is that if a human was put under the same conditions as a computer then the human wouldn't understand (in the same way as a human in a traditional situation). — Michael

Right, because he was attacking symbol manipulation as a form of understanding.

But a human is still conscious. So that a computer wouldn't understand (in the same way we would) under those same conditions is not that it is not conscious. He needs to put the computer under the same conditions that a human would be under to understand the sentences. — Michael

Okay, so there's consciousness-based understanding where the words, "I'm sorry for your loss" don't imply understanding unless symbol producer has experienced loss or can empathize with losing someone.

And then there's the question of intentionality. How do symbols refer? How is it that 1 stands for any single individual item?

Perhaps I have yet to lose someone close and therefore am just being polite.

So let's say you stub your toe. I say that looks painful. Are you going to doubt that I understand what being in pain is? Or if you tell me about a strange dream. Do you doubt that I will understand having a strange dream?

The machine detects water falling from the clouds and so outputs "it is raining". This would be a proper way to consider computer understanding. — Michael

The computer understands it in a propositional sense. Let's make this more complex. Let's say the computer has been programmed to read faces and emotion at a funeral. It then tells a grieving person that it's very sorry for their loss.

Does the computer understand what it means to lose someone?

But she understands the sentences in the Martha-specific language which uses Chinese characters. Just as I understand the word "bite" in English. — Michael

We can agree on that. Searle's contention is stronger. He was arguing against the notion that a computer could understand Chinese like a human being does. Applying a different meaning to "understand" and then claiming that Searle has it wrong is to miss what he was arguing against.

If we want to say that the Chinese room understands Chinese in a rule-following or symbol manipulation manner, then okay. That would be like saying that Siri understands when it's cold outside because she says, "Brrrr, it's 15 degrees outside". But of course she doesn't know what it means to be cold.

Saying that Martha doesn't understand the sentences because she doesn't understand how to use them in the world is like saying that I don't understand the word "bite" because I don't understand how the French use it. — Michael

Which is the same as saying that Martha doesn't understand Chinese, right? The point being that languages are used in context of a world, not a lookup table or by consulting a dictionary, or applying some bayesian algorithm.

Let's say we give a test subject a rulebook and then feed them sets of symbols. For example, whenever they see:

å ß ∂

Then they write down:

ç

Now do these symbols mean anything? Does the set of rules for computing the correct symbol (or symbols) result in some sort of understanding?

And I'll grant that there is an understanding (given a certain meaning of the word) in how to go from one set of symbols to another (based on the rules). But is that what we're doing when we speak? Searle's contention is that it is not, such that the Chinese room can't be said to understand Chinese.

Since math is being brought up, let's take the symbols 1 and +. We can of course tell a computer to compute 1 + 1. It will give us back a new symbol, 2. And we could teach a young child to memorize or lookup the results of addition. Whenever they see 1 + 1, they say or write two. An idiot savant might be able to memorize adding (or multiplying) very large numbers, which would be computer like.

But that's not understanding. 1 + 1 means something. It means you can take one of any individual item and put it together with one of any other individual item and have two items. And that's how kids start off learning how to do basic math. They use beads or marbles or whatever. They don't just blindly memorize the rules for symbol manipulation.

That comes in later math classes, which has been a bone of contention and motivation for educational reforms in math (although it goes back to having kids use the multiplication table to get the result of say 3 times 7 without understanding what that means).

This seems question-begging. I just don't see how the Chinese Room demonstrates one way or the other that humans understand symbols in a different way than the aggregate of the system. Or if humans do understand symbols differently, why we should exclude the notion that a sophisticated system can also understand symbols, albeit differently. — Soylent

Let's put it a different way. Symbols stand in for whatever it is that we understand. They're an abstraction. The claim Searle is making is that no amount of symbol manipulation gets you to understanding, because understanding isn't in the symbols. The symbols represent or encode for some agreed upon meaning.

What I was trying to do with Martha the !Kung speaker, and the arbitrary sets of random symbols is to show that understanding is something other than symbolic computation (manipulation). To Martha, Chinese and English are the same as some random symbols that don't mean anything. And that is exactly what symbols are to a computer.

Humans understand the symbols the system is outputting. But does the system? Searle was objecting to a strong notion of AI in which computers could achieve real understanding. He was also objecting to the idea that our brains are basically symbol manipulators (computational theory of mind).

If we take a Wittgensteinian approach to language, knowing what a sentence means is knowing how to use that sentence — Michael

But by this, did Wittgenstein mean knowing how to transform one sentence into another, or did he mean knowing how to use it in the world?

It's the difference between looking up a word in a dictionary, and being able to use that word in various contexts, such as might come up in conversation.

That's the question I asked. When it comes to maths, doesn't understanding consist in knowing how to manipulate the symbols, or at least knowing what to do with the input (e.g. plot a graph)? — Michael

No, understanding math is like understanding programming. You can use both in situations you haven't encountered before.

When I was taught derivative functions I was taught to move the power to the left of the letter and then reduce the power by one such that x3 becomes 3x2 — Michael

And what does that get you? How do you use it to solve problems or accomplish tasks?

Birth sucks, life sucks, we all know it. — The Great Whatever

So succinct. Should be a meme.

Maybe so, but a lot of criticisms I come across are system replies, so I thought maybe if it was stated differently, it would be clearer that the "systems reply" doesn't work.

My question wasn't about what Marx thought motivated everyone. My question was, "What happens to people who labor when machines take their place (when production is fully automated)? — Bitter Crank

If we do get to the place where machines can perform all human labor, will we also automate decision making? CEOs, Judges and Politicians are only fallible human beings who have to sleep and take breaks.

Maybe the machines will compute the optimal society and distribute accordingly?

Anyway, it sounds like you're talking about a post-scarcity society where no human need work. There will still be some jobs in entertainment and the sex industry out of preference, maybe crafts and what not. But nobody will need to work.

That's one version. The other is the rich and powerful own all the machines and the rest of us eat the crumbs from their tables. Probably grounds for a terrible revolution, but if the rich own the military (which could largely be automated as well), then they may be able to hold on.

If we're talking about being angry at a storm or cancer, then you might have a point. But we're talking about murder, as in one human taking another human's life.

Also, I don't get where self-hatred comes into play here. The family grieves the loss of a loved one and wants justice, since someone is at fault. Society wants the murderer put away.

And how does the alternative offer an explanation? Rather than just say "we experience X" the 'explanation' is "we experience X because something other than the experience happens". Is that really much of an explanation? Seems like a God-of-the-gaps.

And perhaps there is no explanation. Explanations must come to an end somewhere. So why not at the phenomenal? — Michael

The problem here Michael is that we prosecute crimes as if there is an explanation, and something did happen beyond "we experience X".

Take for example someone charged with a murder and the defense maintains that it was an accident. Maybe the victim fell down the stairs instead of being pushed, or what have you. Maybe the accused didn't even see it happen. Now, is there a truth to what happened? If no, then why does society bother trying to figure out? Why investigate, why prosecute, why convict?

The specialization and fragmentation of society is what we would expect under capitalism, and as all occupations become something which must produce goods or services which are marketable, everyone specializes into their niche. — Moliere

You could probably replace capitalism with civilization. Specialization comes with the rise of civilization. It's not new.

People start out with different premises and start arguing form there. If your metaphysics is fundamentally different than mine, then of course we're not going to agree on lots of things, no matter how good or bad the arguments presented are.

The explanation only matters to the extent that it provides useful predictions. It's a backformed validation. — Landru Guide Us

Predictions are about validation. Usefulness is a matter of technological application. And not all scientific theories are useful in the everyday sense of building bridges and practicing dentistry, which aren't scientific endeavors, btw, although they utilize the results from biology, chemistry and physics.

How practical do you suppose the inflationary model of the Big Bang is?

Anyway, the reason prediction is an important part of science is not because it's useful, first and foremost, but because it provides empirical support. Useful results are about applying science. That's in the realm of engineering or medicine.

The primary motivation for doing science is to understand the world, and then secondly, to make use of that understanding when possible (which isn't always). As usual, you conflate technology with science.

The "problems" are good things, not bad things, for science. — Landru Guide Us

The problems suggests that QM has foundational issues. When you can't make heads or tails over something behaving like a wave in one experiment, but behaving like a particle in another, then maybe things need to be rethought to make better sense of the experimental results.

But in any case, whether particles popped into existence or didn't isn't a philosophical issue; it's an empirical one. — Landru Guide Us

But what does it mean for something to pop into existence? Is that an adequate explanation for what's going on when a detector goes off in a vacuum? Perhaps there is a better one that doesn't lead to paradoxical notions.

Edit: I see your reply was to Moliere. Jumped the gun a bit.

And naturally you missed the point of the article, which as that changing from viewing the fundamental constituents of physics as fields and particles to properties and their relations, gets rid of many of the problems with QM leading to various interpretations. That's what philosophy can offer science.

And the author of that SA article did mention instrumentalism, but thought that most scientists believed that science was about reality, otherwise why do it? As such, particles and fields were to be considered ontological commitments by physicists, not just useful models. Change the ontological commitments, and some of the problems with QM dissipate.

I just read a philosophical article on QM in the magazine Scientific American. It was interesting because it discussed universals, materialism, and tropes. The author put forward an argument that the classical notion of particles and fields leads to QM weirdness. But if we abandon those ontological commitments in favor of properties and relations, then we can dispense with the weirdness.

For example, a detector can register a particle in a vacuum, which is definitely weird. Particle ontology leads to thinking that particles can somehow pop into and out of existence. But if rather we think of the vacuum itself having properties, then a detector can register a particle when those properties are in the right arrangement. So we don't need to think the particle popped into existence. Rather, properties of the vacuum were related in just the right way to make the detector go off. Conceptually, we call that a particle of some kind.

Similarly, you can dispense with the weirdness from particle/wave duality, if it's just bundles of properties, rather than thinking somehow the electron is particle when you measure it one way, and a wave when you mesure it a different way.

That was rather enlightening, and I think a way forward. It's a good example of how philosophy can help scientists clarify their concepts when they run into baffling results. You can't put tropes to the test. They are a metaphysical concept. But what they do is make QM a bit less baffling.