Comment by IanCal
2 months ago
> He’s not arguing that it’s not possible to devise such a test.
The entire point of the thought experiment is that to outside observers it appears the same as if a fluent speaker is in the room. There aren’t questions you can ask to tell the difference.
That's not the entire point, but it is the a big part of the premise. The entire point, on the contrary, is that the system inside the room does not have anything with conscious understanding of Chinese DESPITE passing the Turing Test. It's highlighting precisely that there's an ontological difference between the apparent behavior of the system and the reality of it.
Of course it’s the point, the systems are not distinguishable by behaviour only what’s inside them. There are not tests to determine what’s inside, otherwise the whole thing is pointless.
This was why I have the tin of beans comparison.
The room has the property X if and only if there’s a tin of beans inside. You can’t in any way tell the difference between a room that has a tin of beans in and one that doesn’t without looking inside.
You might find that a property that has zero predictive power, makes (by definition) no difference to what either room can do, and has no use for any practical purposes (again by definition) is rather pointless. I would agree.
Searle has a definition of understanding that, to me, cannot be useful for any actual purpose. It is therefore irrelevant to me if any system has his special property just as my tin of beans property is useless.
Again, it’s not an epistemological test. In reality the material difference between a computing machine and a brain is trivial. It’s showing there’s a categorical difference between the two. BTW—ethically it matters a great deal. If one system is conscious or another, that gives it moral status. Among other practical differences such as guarantee of function over long term.
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Most elegant tin of beans I've seen in a while.
If I understand your argument: if there's no empirical consequence, what's the point of the distinction, right?
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