Saturday, July 11, 2015

Chinese Rooms as Russia Dolls

The human John Searle created a thought experiment to refute the possibility of "Strong AI" (Computers that Think) proving in his mind the likelihood of "Weak AI" (Computers only simulate Thought)

Worse he constrains the use of the Chinese Room thought experiment to hold that human thought cannot be just processing, a sort of Morecambe and Wise argument..."Get out of that without moving!"

If we put the Chinese Room A inside a Chinese Room B and feed meaningless symbols into Chinese Room B will Cohones Room A notice? You might ask what this proves about the existence of, or definition of thought, especially if you first define thought to be " Not Processing". I suspect it simply proves that Searle has balls!

The joke is that Human Philosphy itself to the first person observer in a "Philosophy Room", is a set of meaningless symbols operated upon, using rules known only inside the room. Which leads to the inevitable conclusion, according to Searle, that Philosophy is not real thought! None-the-less outside observers have been tricked into seeing it in a much better light!

Their programmer must be wetting herself!