I need some clarification on what seems to be a hidden assumption here… Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to be assuming that SCA knows that the symbols she is getting are representations of something in the universe (i.e. that they are language).
Let’s assume that SCA thinks she is copying the patterns that naturally dripping sap creates on the sands on the floor of a cave.
It follows that all of these statements are not inferred:
“Moreover, it is logical that when something is read, somebody wrote it.”
“[...] she observes that an action of reading not corresponding to a previous action of writing indicates that there must be an agent in the world to which an “I” is opposed.”
“This does not hinder SCA from learning that “P” and “p” belong to the same paradigm.”
SCA infers that “somebody wrote that” where the term “somebody” is used more generally than in English.
SCA does not infer that another human being wrote that, but rather that a casual agent wrote that, maybe spirits of the caves.
If SCA enters two caves and observes natural patterns in cave A and the characters of “The adventures of Pinocchio” in cave B, she may deduce that two different spirits wrote them. Although she may discover some patterns in what spirit A (natural phenomena) wrote, she won’t be able to discover a grammar as complex as in cave B. Spirit B wrote often the sequence “oor ”, preceded sometimes by capital ” P”, sometimes by small ” p”. Therefore, she infers that symbols “p” and “P” are similar (at first, she may group also “d” with them, but she may correct that thanks to additional observations).
There is no hidden assumption that SCA knows she is observing a language in cave B. SCA is not a taught cryptographer, but rather an Aboriginal cryptographer. She performs statistical pattern matching only and makes the hypothesis that spirit B may have represented the concept of writing by using a sequence of letters “said”. She discards other hypotheses that just a single character may correspond to the concept of writing (although she has some doubt with “:”). She discards other hypotheses that capitalised words are words reported to be written. On the other side, direct discourse in “The adventures of Pinocchio” supports her hypothesis about “said”.
SCA keeps generating hypotheses that way so that she learns to decode more knowledge, without the need of knowing that the symbols are language (she rather discovers the concept of language).
But the fact that it is purposeful writing, for example by a spirit, is an added assumption… SCA doesn’t have to think that, she could think its randomly generated scribbles made by nature. Like how she doesn’t think the rings on the inside of a tree are a form of telling a story. They are just meaningless signs. And if she does not think the signs have meaning, your statements don’t follow (having scribbles doesn’t mean that some other agent necessarily made them, and since the scribbles don’t point to anything in reality there is no way to understand that P and p are of some same type of item). Thus, there exists a human to be put in a Chinese Room that can make the room replicate the understanding of Chinese without knowing Chinese herself.
Uhm, an Aboriginal tends to see meaning in anything. The more the regularities, the more meaning she will form. Semiosis is the dynamic process of interpreting these signs.
If you were put in a Chinese room with no other input than some incomprehensible scribbles you will probably start considering that what you are doing has indeed a meaning.
Of course, a less intelligent human in the room or a human put under pressure would not be able to understand Chinese even with the right algorithm. My point is that the right algorithm enables the right human to understand Chinese. Do you see that?
Then that’s an unnecessary assumption about Aboriginals. Take a native Madagascan instead (arbitrary choice of ethnicity) and he might not.
As far as I know it is not true, and certainly not based on any concrete evidence, that humans must see intentional patterns in everything. Not every culture thought cloud patterns were a language for example. In such a culture, the one beholding the sky doesn’t necessarily think it displays the actions of an intentful agent recording a message. The same can be true for Chinese scribbles.
If what you’re saying was true, it would be a very surprising fact that there are a whole bunch of human cultures in history that never invented writing.
At any rate, if there exists a not-an-anomaly-example of a human that given sufficient time could not learn Chinese in a Chinese Room, the entire argument as a solution to the problem doesn’t hold (lets call this “the normal man argument”).
If it were enough that there exists a human that *could* learn Chinese in the room, then you could have just given some example of really intuitive learners throughout history or some such.
It is enough for the original Chinese room to show a complete system that emulates understanding
Chinese, but no part of it (specifically the human part) understands Chinese, and therefore you can’t prove a machine is “actually thinking” and all that jazz because it might be constructed like the aforementioned system (this is the basis for the normal man argument).
Of course, there are answers to this conundrum, but the one you posit doesn’t contradict the original point.
I need some clarification on what seems to be a hidden assumption here… Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to be assuming that SCA knows that the symbols she is getting are representations of something in the universe (i.e. that they are language).
Let’s assume that SCA thinks she is copying the patterns that naturally dripping sap creates on the sands on the floor of a cave.
It follows that all of these statements are not inferred:
“Moreover, it is logical that when something is read, somebody wrote it.”
“[...] she observes that an action of reading not corresponding to a previous action of writing indicates that there must be an agent in the world to which an “I” is opposed.”
“This does not hinder SCA from learning that “P” and “p” belong to the same paradigm.”
and so on.
SCA infers that “somebody wrote that” where the term “somebody” is used more generally than in English.
SCA does not infer that another human being wrote that, but rather that a casual agent wrote that, maybe spirits of the caves.
If SCA enters two caves and observes natural patterns in cave A and the characters of “The adventures of Pinocchio” in cave B, she may deduce that two different spirits wrote them. Although she may discover some patterns in what spirit A (natural phenomena) wrote, she won’t be able to discover a grammar as complex as in cave B. Spirit B wrote often the sequence “oor ”, preceded sometimes by capital ” P”, sometimes by small ” p”. Therefore, she infers that symbols “p” and “P” are similar (at first, she may group also “d” with them, but she may correct that thanks to additional observations).
There is no hidden assumption that SCA knows she is observing a language in cave B. SCA is not a taught cryptographer, but rather an Aboriginal cryptographer. She performs statistical pattern matching only and makes the hypothesis that spirit B may have represented the concept of writing by using a sequence of letters “said”. She discards other hypotheses that just a single character may correspond to the concept of writing (although she has some doubt with “:”). She discards other hypotheses that capitalised words are words reported to be written. On the other side, direct discourse in “The adventures of Pinocchio” supports her hypothesis about “said”.
SCA keeps generating hypotheses that way so that she learns to decode more knowledge, without the need of knowing that the symbols are language (she rather discovers the concept of language).
But the fact that it is purposeful writing, for example by a spirit, is an added assumption… SCA doesn’t have to think that, she could think its randomly generated scribbles made by nature. Like how she doesn’t think the rings on the inside of a tree are a form of telling a story. They are just meaningless signs. And if she does not think the signs have meaning, your statements don’t follow (having scribbles doesn’t mean that some other agent necessarily made them, and since the scribbles don’t point to anything in reality there is no way to understand that P and p are of some same type of item). Thus, there exists a human to be put in a Chinese Room that can make the room replicate the understanding of Chinese without knowing Chinese herself.
Uhm, an Aboriginal tends to see meaning in anything. The more the regularities, the more meaning she will form. Semiosis is the dynamic process of interpreting these signs.
If you were put in a Chinese room with no other input than some incomprehensible scribbles you will probably start considering that what you are doing has indeed a meaning.
Of course, a less intelligent human in the room or a human put under pressure would not be able to understand Chinese even with the right algorithm. My point is that the right algorithm enables the right human to understand Chinese. Do you see that?
Then that’s an unnecessary assumption about Aboriginals. Take a native Madagascan instead (arbitrary choice of ethnicity) and he might not.
As far as I know it is not true, and certainly not based on any concrete evidence, that humans must see intentional patterns in everything. Not every culture thought cloud patterns were a language for example. In such a culture, the one beholding the sky doesn’t necessarily think it displays the actions of an intentful agent recording a message. The same can be true for Chinese scribbles.
If what you’re saying was true, it would be a very surprising fact that there are a whole bunch of human cultures in history that never invented writing.
At any rate, if there exists a not-an-anomaly-example of a human that given sufficient time could not learn Chinese in a Chinese Room, the entire argument as a solution to the problem doesn’t hold (lets call this “the normal man argument”).
If it were enough that there exists a human that *could* learn Chinese in the room, then you could have just given some example of really intuitive learners throughout history or some such.
It is enough for the original Chinese room to show a complete system that emulates understanding
Chinese, but no part of it (specifically the human part) understands Chinese, and therefore you can’t prove a machine is “actually thinking” and all that jazz because it might be constructed like the aforementioned system (this is the basis for the normal man argument).
Of course, there are answers to this conundrum, but the one you posit doesn’t contradict the original point.