Philosophy Of Mind Essays - Philosophy Of Artificial Intelligence

Philosophy Of Mind In this paper I plan to show that Searle is correct in claiming that his Chinese Room Analogy shows that any Turing machine simulation of human understanding of a linguistic phenomenon fails to possess any real understanding. First I will explain the Chinese Room Analogy and how it is compared to a Turing machine. I will then show that the machine can not literally be said to understand. A Turing machine has a infinite number of internal states, but always begins a computation in the initial state go. Turing machines can be generalized in various ways. For example many machines can be connected, or a single machines may have more than one reader-printer under command of the control. The machines are set to accept input and give output based on the type of input given. When comparing the Turing machine simulation of understanding to actual human understanding you ca see the story given as input, and the answers to questions about the story as output. In the Chinese Room Analogy Searle supposed that he was locked in a room with a large batch of Chinese writing referred to as "scripts". By using the term "script" it is meant to say that this first batch of Chinese writing is the original or principal instrument or document. Further more in this case he is said not to know any Chinese, either written or spoken. The Chinese writing is described by Searle as " meaningless squiggles". Next he is presented with a second batch of Chinese writing referred to as a "story". The term story here is meant to describe the second batch to be an account of incidents or events that will be used to make a statement regarding the facts pertinent to the incidents or events that will follow. Accompanied with the second batch of writing is a set of written rules written in English that is meant to be used for correlating the two batches called a "program". The "program" given to Searle is meant to used as a printed outline of a particular order to be followed to correlate the Chinese symbols. The rules, or the "program", will allow Searle to correlate the symbols entirely by their shape. Finally a third batch of Chinese symbols is presented along with further instructions in English, referred to as "questions". The "questions" are implemented as a way to interrogate Searle in such a manner that his competence in the situation will be given. These "questions" allow the third batch to be correlated with the first two batches. It is supposed in this analogy that after a while he becomes so good at following the instructions to manipulate the symbols, while giving the correct answers, that is becomes impossible for a man from outside the direct point of view to distinguish his answers from that of a native Chinese speaker. The Chinese Room Analogy goes a step further when he is given large batches of English, called "stories", which he of course understands as native English speaker. The story in this case is to be used just as it was in the previous case, to describe the batch as an account of incidents or events that will be used to make a statement regarding the facts pertinent to the incidents or events that will follow. Much like the case with the Chinese writing questions are asked in English and he is able to answer them, also in English. These answers are indistinguishable from that of other native English speakers, if for no other reason that he is a native speaker himself. The difference here is that in the Chinese case, Searle is only producing answers based on manipulation of the symbols of which have no meaning to him, and in the English case answers are given based on understanding. It is supposed that in the Chinese case, Searle behaves as nothing more than a computer, performing operations on formally specified elements. An advocate of the strong AI (Artificial Intelligence) claim that if a question and answer sequence much like the case with the Chinese symbols, a machine is not only simulating human ability but also that the machine can be said to literally understand a story and provide answers to questions about them. Searle declares that in regard to the first claim where machine can literally be said to understand a story and provide answers, that this is untrue. Obviously in the Chinese Room Analogy even though the inputs and outputs are indistinguishable from that of native Chinese speaker Searle