<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<br>
<br>
Though I think the way most people, including Searle, use the idea of
the Chinese room is mistaken, there is an important idea there having
to do with the hard problem of consciousness.<br>
<br>
This has to do with Chalmer's "principle of organizational invariance"
which states that phenomenal properties can "arize" from any equivalent
functional organization. Sure, in actuality, things like a set of
water pipes and valves, and / or a "Chineese room" could not actually
result in any kind of intelligent behavior, but theoretically, all
mathematical calculations required could be reproduced and simulated by
all such systems if the speed of such operations were simply increased
a near infinite amount. This position is argued in this position
statement here:<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/23/8">http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/23/8</a><br>
<br>
Chalmers, I, and many others agree that there is a "hard problem" but I
disagree with him that phenomenal properties could "arise" from any
equivalent functional organization, of which a "Chinese Room" is,
though absurd and racist, one example.<br>
<br>
I also very much disagree with the idea that consciousness is only a
process or only behavior, or not located anywhere. And this is all
described in the "Nature has Phenomenal Properties" camp statement:<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/23/2">http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/23/2</a><br>
<br>
Brent Allsop<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
John K Clark wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:022b01c843f3$d25ca520$afee4d0c@MyComputer"
type="cite">
<pre wrap=""><a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:citta437@aol.com"><citta437@aol.com></a> Wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">What is the goal of the experiment?
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
You would have to ask Mr. Searle about that not me. I'm sure he was trying
to prove something profound, but whatever it was he failed miserably.
Even the best of us can come up with a bad idea but even now, years later,
he still thinks the Chinese Room was clever; and that is exactly what makes
me so certain that Mr. Searle isn't.
I want to tell you about Clark's Chinese Room. You are a professor of
Chinese Literature and are in a room with me and the great Chinese
Philosopher and Poet Laotse. Laotse writes something in his native
language on a paper and hands it to me. I walk 10 feet and give it to you.
You read the paper and are impressed with the wisdom of the message
and the beauty of its language. Now I tell you that I don't know a word of
Chinese, can you find any deep implications from that fact?
I believe Clark's Chinese Room is just as profound as Searle's Chinese
Room. Not very.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Are you expecting that it will show
where consciousness is located in the brain?
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
That would be ridiculous. In the same way it would be ridiculous to
expect a mathematicians to tell me where eleven is or a race car driver
tell me where swift is, or a artist tell me where beautiful is.
Consciousness is not a brain; consciousness is what a brain does.
I am an adjective, I am not a noun.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Emotions of fear, sadness and joy are concentrated in the lower part of
the brain, the amygdala, by showing an increased or diminished blood
flow in that area.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
Searle wasn't talking about the amygdale or blood or any other structure
that through an evolutionary historical accident some life forms on this
small planet happen to possess. Searle wasn't even talking about brains,
he was trying to talk about general principles of mind. And it that he
failed.
John K Clark
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat">http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
</body>
</html>