I am with Rachel on this one. The challenge Searle makes regarding the acquisition of a system is a bit of a crux. Following an algorithm and manipulating Chinese characters can hardly be said to be the same thing as understanding that language. Or, the manipulator cannot be said to understand what is conveyed through the language.
However, one thing nagging at me is that to understand the omitted portions of the stories, strong AI would have to have that oblique vision associated with Dupin. It would have to comprehend that which is implied. An implication may be ingrained in language, but the grasp of syntax required is very impressive, to a level I find to be indistinguishable from those of us who “understand” a language.
Of course, simulation of oblique vision is not the thing as duplication. Villiers in Tomorrow’s Eve comes the closest to creating a feasible sense of duplication, and Hadaly is entirely contingent upon Lord Ewald’s intentionality. Seeing a man and a lump of basalt at Java Jones on State St, one may wonder aloud whether or not they are in love. The man may feel ascending pangs of love, and the basalt says all the right things. He betrays a vulnerability and it encourages him to share. It reminds him of his youth on a Corsican beach, upon which day he saw a stone in the shape of a heart (and experienced his first manly initiation). He shall whisper insinuations and that basalt shall blush. Later on it will chide him for forgetting their anniversary, making him sleep on the couch. Yet can they be said to be in love?
Thinking is not a mutual property (especially in relationships), but the systems reply, and even Turing, would have us think that it is a collaborative effort. I find it hard to believe, regarding the systems reply, that a the quality of loving, or individual thinking, can be ascribed to a system of things- single things that do not contain that property themselves. And I do not believe, regarding Turing, that this computer on which I type hates me, even though it is hostile and rebuffs all my attempts at seduction…
-Trevor Losh-Johnson
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March 27, 2007 at 12:35 am
Update- I am reversing my proposal. I just lost a game of chess to a computer. I had three queens and he had nothing. Yet he refused to let me move, and made my clock run out. This proves that computers can not only think, but that they have egos, too, and think indignantly. You would not question whether the kid playing “bank” in monopoly thinks, when he or she pilfers from the pot. This is inductive proof!!!—TLJ