[ExI] Meaningless Symbols.

Lee Corbin lcorbin at rawbw.com
Mon Jan 11 18:30:49 UTC 2010


Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> 2010/1/11 John Clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net>:
> 
>> If the computer did understand the meaning you think the machine would
>> continue to operate exactly as it did before, back when it didn't have the
>> slightest understanding of anything. So, given that understanding is a
>> completely useless property why should computer scientists even bother
>> figuring out ways to make a machine understand? Haven't they got anything
>> better to do?
> 
> Gordon has in mind a special sort of understanding which makes no
> objective difference and, although he would say it makes a subjective
> difference, it is not a subjective difference that a person could
> notice.

Well, no, those who wish to make the case for the possible
existence of zombies are making a far stronger claim than
that; they're claiming that there wouldn't even be a
"noticer" at all. I.e., rather than any subjective difference,
they posit simply there being no subject.

To me, the claim in not at all incoherent, merely extremely
unlikely. And a variation on what John Clark says above is
this old argument: if "true understanding" doesn't make any
difference, then why did evolution bother to manufacture it?

Lee




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