Category: Philosophy of Science

“The chinese room argument is a thought experiment of john searle (1980a) and associated (1984) derivation. it is one of the best known and widely credited counters to claims of artificial intelligence (ai)that is, to claims that computers do or at least can (someday might) think. according to searles original presentation, the argument is based on two key claims: brains cause minds and syntax doesnt suffice for semantics. its target is what searle dubs strong ai. according to strong ai, searle says, the computer is not merely a tool in the study of the mind, rather the appropriately programmed computer really is a mind in the sense that computers given the right programs can be literally said to understand and have other cognitive states (1980a, p. 417). searle contrasts strong ai with weak ai. according to weak ai, computers just simulate thought, their seeming understanding isnt real understanding (just as-if), their seeming calculation is only as-if calculation, etc. nevertheless, computer simulation is useful for studying the mind (as for studying the weather and other things).”

“John searle’s chinese room argument (cra) is a celebrated thought experiment designed to refute the hypothesis, popular among artificial intelligence (ai) scientists and philosophers of mind, that ‘the appropriately programmed computer really is a mind’. since its publication in 1980, the cra has evoked an enormous amount of debate about its implications for machine intelligence, the functionalist philosophy of mind, theories of consciousness, etc. although the general consensus among commentators is that the cra is flawed, and not withstanding the popularity of the systems reply in some quarters, there is remarkably little agreement on exactly how and why it is flawed. a newcomer to the controversy could be forgiven for thinking that the bewildering collection of diverse replies to searle betrays a tendency to unprincipled, ad hoc argumentation and, thereby, a weakness in the opposition’s case. in this paper, treating the cra as a prototypical example of a ‘destructive’ thought experiment, i attempt to set it in a logical framework (due to sorensen), which allows us to systematise and classify the various objections. since thought experiments are always posed in narrative form, formal logic by itself cannot fully capture the controversy. on the contrary, much also hinges on how one translates between the informal everyday language in which the cra was initially framed and formal logic and, in particular, on the specific conception(s) of possibility that one reads into the logical formalism. (psycinfo database record (c) 2012 apa, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)”

“‘Strong artificial life’ refers to the thesis that a sufficiently sophisticated computer simulation of a life form is a life form in its own right. can john searle’s chinese room argument [12]—originally intended by him to show that the thesis he dubs ‘strong ai’ is false—be deployed against strong alife? we have often encountered the suggestion that it can be (even in print; see harnad [8]). we do our best to transfer the argument from the domain of ai to that of alife. we do so in order to show once and for all that the chinese room argument proves nothing about alife. there may indeed be powerful philosophical objections to the thesis of strong alife, but the chinese room argument is not among them.”

“ABSTRACT: searle’s celebrated chinese room argument has shaken the foundations of artificial intelligence. many refutations have been attempted, but none seem convincing. this paper is an attempt to sort out explicitly the assumptions and the logical, methodological and empirical points of disagreement. searle is shown to have underestimated some features of computer modeling, but the heart of the issue turns out to be an empirical question about the scope and limits of the purely symbolic (computational) model of the mind. nonsymbolic modeling turns out to be immune to the chinese room argument. the issues discussed include the total turing test, modularity, neural modeling, robotics, causality and the symbol-grounding problem.”

“Abstract searle’s chinese room argument (cra) has been the object of great interest in the philosophy of mind, artificial intelligencenand cognitive science since its initial presentation in ‘minds, brains and programs’ in 1980. it is by no means an overstatementnto assert that it has been a main focus of attention for philosophers and computer scientists of many stripes. it is thennespecially interesting to note that relatively little has been said about the detailed logic of the argument, whatever significancensearle intended cra to have. the problem with the cra is that it involves a very strong modal claim, the truth of which isnboth unproved and highly questionable. so it will be argued here that the cra does not prove what it was intended to prove.”

“The most famous challenge to computational cognitive science and artificial intelligence is the philosopher john searle’s ‘chinese room’ argument. searle argued that, although machines can be devised to respond to input with the same output as would a mind, machines-unlike minds-lack understanding of the symbols they process. 19 essays by leading scientists and philosophers assess, renew, and respond to this crucial challenge.”

“Summary of searle’s ‘chinese room argument’ showing that cognition cannot be just computation. searle implements a computer programme that can pass the turing test in chinese. searle does not understand chinese in doing so, hence neither does the computer.”

“John r searle’s problem of the chinese room is criticized for failing to address microlevel functional isomorphisms between intelligent subjects and artificial cognitive simulations in hypothetical turing test evaluations. searle’s argument that the mammalian brain is the only known material object with the ‘right causal powers’ to support intrinsic intentional states in a scientific causal-biological ‘naturalization’ of intentionality is refuted as inconsistent in objective and inadequately motivated. searle’s examples of wetness and elasticity as instances of the causation and realization of macrostructure in microstructure are rejected as unsatisfactory analogies for the way in which intentionality is supposed to be caused by and realized in the microstructure of the brain. an alternative approach to the scientific demystification of intentionality is proposed in accord with a foundational model of conceptual analysis, in which intentionality is seen as a primitive abstract relation rather than a causal-biological product or process.”

“The chinese room argument has presented a persistent headache in the search for artificial intelligence. since it first appeared in the literature, various interpretations have been made, attempting to understand the problems posed by this thought experiment. throughout all this time, some researchers in the artificial intelligence community have seen symbol grounding as proposed by harnad as a solution to the chinese room argument. the main thesis in this paper is that although related, these two issues present different problems in the framework presented by harnad himself. the work presented here attempts to shed some light on the relationship between john searle’s intentionality notion and harnad’s symbol grounding problem. © springer science+business media b.v. 2011.”

“I argue that john searle’s (1980) influential chinesenroom argument (cra) against computationalism and strong ainsurvives existing objections $…$ however, a newn”essentialist” reply i construct shows that the cra as presentednby searle is an unsound argument that relies on a question-beggingnappeal to intuition. $…$ ”

“Offers a philosophical perspective about the cognitive approach to thinking in general cognitive scientists often say that the mind is the software of the brain this chapter is about what this claim means start with an influential attempt to define ‘intelligence’ consider how human intelligence is to be investigated on the machine model discuss the relation between the mental and the biological intelligence and intentionality functionalism and the language of thought arguments for the language of thought explanatory levels and the syntactic theory of the mind j. searle’s chinese room argument (psycinfo database record (c) 2007 apa, all rights reserved)”

“Searle’s chinese room argument is analyzed from a cognitive point of view. the analysis is based on a newly developed model of conceptual integration, the many space model proposed by fauconnier and turner. the main point of the analysis is that the central inference constructed in the chinese room scenario is a result of a dynamic, cognitive activity of conceptual blending, with metaphor defining the basic features of the blending. two important consequences follow: (1) searle’s recent contention that syntax is not intrinsic to physics turns out to be a slightly modified version of the old chinese room argument; and (2) the argument itself is still open to debate. it is persuasive but not conclusive, and at bottom it is a topological mismatch in the metaphoric conceptual integration that is responsible for the non-conclusive character of the chinese room argument. [abstract from author]; copyright of philosophical psychology is the property of routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s express written permission. however, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. this abstract may be abridged. no warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (copyright applies to all abstracts.)”