I don't know if this makes a difference, but the guy following instructions could be a machine. He does not need a mind.

A person who has a mind, and speaks Chinese and reads and writes in Chinese too, has an AI program. It processes not only simple input-output instructions, but makes decisions on avaliable other data.

For instance: You pass in the Chinese question "How is the weather today?" the instruction set may direct the dumb actor to say "nice" or "awful", but it will never say "12 Kilograms." When it's a choice of "nice" and "a\wful", the program alone can't decide. It needs a third input into the instruction set, "check the weather and answer accordingly."

If it's a simple translation set of instructions, the machine will be stuck with not knowing whehter to say "nce" or "awful". A human who has access to the third piece of information can pick the proper symbol.

I don't know what this proves or unproves, because, frankly, I don't follow the logic that brings you to the conclusion that the consciousness is the whole thing, not one of its part. That conclusion absolutely escapes my understanding.

Okay, I finally read the second last paragraph. In the human mind, according to my belief anyway, there is a conceptualization what "wheather" is, and what "nice" and "awfu" are. There may be not one single neuron responsible for the conceptualization, but there is differentiation of concepts, and they can't all involve all the neurons, and they can't all involve the same, albeit limited number of, neurons.

Hence, I reject the concept that the Chinese room purports to prove according to the example you brought up.

In the human mind, according to my belief anyway, there is a conceptualization what "wheather" is, and what "nice" and "awfu" are. — god must be atheist

This conceptualization of "nice", "awful" etc is due to the activity of one or more neuronal networks in our brain. But any single neuron within the neuronal network is unaware of what it is conceptualizing.

You don't just jump from "a single neuron" to "full human consciousness" like that.

You don't just jump from "a single neuron" to "full human consciousness" like that. — Outlander

Yes, I agree. I am trying to draw an analogy in which a neuron is the man in the chinese room and our whole brain is the room itself. Both the man and the neuron have no understanding of chinese yet the brain will understand chinese, hence the room should too.

That begs the question: how does a system of X (neurons, switches, q-bits, whatever) become conscious? And we're back to the Hard Problem.

Both the man and the neuron have no understanding of chinese yet the brain will understand chinese, hence the room should too. — debd

It seems to me that to solve this riddle, we need a concise definition of "understanding".

The program enables the person in the room to pass the Turing Test for understanding Chinese but he does not understand a word of Chinese.

Then the Turing Test isn't very good at determining some system's understanding of some symbol-system.

Ironically, the instructions themselves is a symbol-system and the man in the room understands the instructions, but not Chinese, so the instructions are not for understanding Chinese, but what do when you see a certain scribble.

So the man in the room does understand something, but not Chinese. This leads one to posit that understanding is possessing instructions for interpreting some symbol.

In A nice derangement of epitaphs Davidson argues that language is not algorithmic.

Searle is arguing much the same thing with the Chinese room.

How would the Chinese room deal with nonsense? How would it translate A Spaniard in the works?

Hence it appears to me that consciousness is the property of whole systems on not of its isolated part, this has already been posited out as systems reply to Searle. — debd

Am I reading this right..? Are you using the Chinese room argument to suggest that individual neurons aren't conscious?

Am I reading this right..? Are you using the Chinese room argument to suggest that individual neurons aren't conscious? — Kenosha Kid

Am I reading this right..? Are you suggesting that we have billions of conscious entities within one brain? I wonder, which neuron in my brain is my consciousness?

How would the Chinese room deal with nonsense? How would it translate A Spaniard in the works? — Banno

Is the problem that the sentence is actually nonsense, or that there are no instructions for translating such an arrangement of scribbles? What does it mean for some string of scribbles to be nonsense?

I think that consciousness or understanding or perception at a particular point of time is the function of the structural and physiological state of the neuronal network at that point in time. I confess that I have no idea about the actual architecture of the neural network, but I do think such state functions of neuronal networks or even interconnected neuronal networks give rise to perception or understanding.

Oliver Sacks in his book The River of Consciousness wrote about patients with Parkinsonism with bradykinesia who had altered perception of time. Time flowed more slowly for these patients in their Parkinsonian state. They were able to recognize this change in their temporal perception only when they were relieved of this Parkinsonian state by medication or deep brain stimulation. The region in the brain responsible for this change in temporal perception has been grossly identified to be the basal ganglia and substantia nigra. So a directed electrical stimulation in the brain can change the perception of time.

In A nice derangement of epitaphs Davidson argues that language is not algorithmic.

Searle is arguing much the same thing with the Chinese room. — Banno

I think Searle's thought experiment was rather a reaction to reductive takes on consciousness, particularly computational, functionalist ones:

I think that consciousness or understanding or perception at a particular point of time is the function of the structural and physiological state of the neuronal network at that point in time. — debd

Now consider the room to be our brain and the person is replaced by a chain of neurons. — debd

There are other variants of the thought experiment that are an even better fit for this, such as Ned Block's Chinese Nation thought experiment, where a large group of people performs a neural network computation simply by calling a list of phone numbers. The counterintuitive result here is that a functionalist would have to say that the entire system thinks, understands language, feels pain, etc. - whatever it is that it is functionally simulating - even though it is very hard to conceive of e.g. the Chinese nation as a single conscious entity.

But I think this people-as-computer-parts gimmick is a red herring. Of course a part of a system is not equivalent to the entire system - that was never in contention. A wheel spoke is not a bicycle either. The real contention here is whether something that is not a person - a computer, for example - can have a functional equivalent of consciousness.

There are other variants of the thought experiment that are an even better fit for this, such as Ned Block's Chinese Nation thought experiment, where a large group of people performs a neural network computation simply by calling a list of phone numbers. The counterintuitive result here is that a functionalist would have to say that the entire system thinks, understands language, feels pain, etc. - whatever it is that it is functionally simulating - even though it is very hard to conceive of e.g. the Chinese nation, as a single conscious entity.

But I think this people-as-computer-parts gimmick is a red herring. Of course a part of a system is not equivalent to the entire system - that was never in contention. A wheel spoke is not a bicycle either. The real contention here is whether something that is not a person - a computer, for example - can have a functional equivalent of consciousness.

Another issue is that the contents of a computer's mind (if it has one) are immune from discovery using scientific methods. The only access to knowledge of computer mental states would be through first-person computer accounts, the reliability of which would be impossible to verify. Whether machines are conscious will forever be a mystery. This suggests that consciousness is unlike all other physical properties.

This is a well-considered statement. I second it but that would mean, if taken only a step further, that an actual Chinese Room is, well, conscious - is itself a mind capable of understanding and all that jazz that mind/consciousness is about. Yet, that seems an extraodinary claim to make - thinking here about superorganisms.

Your take on this also implies that, if we flip it around, that consciousness maybe an illusion; after all, if one is under the impression that a Chinese Room is incapable of understanding then, we too must be incapable of doing so.

Another issue is that the contents of a computer's mind (if it has one) are immune from discovery using scientific methods. The only access to knowledge of computer mental states would be through first-person computer accounts, the reliability of which would be impossible to verify. Whether machines are conscious will forever be a mystery. This suggests that consciousness is unlike all other physical properties. — RogueAI

How is this issue different from not having a first-person experience of another person's consciousness? Unless your real issue is that it's a computer rather than a person - but that is the same issue that Chinese Room-type thought experiments try to capitalize on (confusingly, in my opinion).

There are other variants of the thought experiment that are an even better fit for this, such as Ned Block's Chinese Nation thought experiment, where a large group of people performs a neural network computation simply by calling a list of phone numbers. The counterintuitive result here is that a functionalist would have to say that the entire system thinks, understands language, feels pain, etc. - whatever it is that it is functionally simulating - even though it is very hard to conceive of e.g. the Chinese nation as a single conscious entity. — SophistiCat

Yes, that's why I used the analogy of the brain and its constituent neurons which we consider to be conscious.

The real contention here is whether something that is not a person - a computer, for example - can have a functional equivalent of consciousness. — SophistiCat

Consider a neuronal network that is responsible for the perception of time as in the case of Parkinson's patients I described earlier. Now consider a biological neuron in this network is replaced by an artificial one. This is already being done, although not at the level of the neurons but more crudely with deep brain stimulation and responsive neuro stimulation. Hopefully, technology will advance sufficiently to let us do this at the neuronal level. Now, these patients don't consider any otherness in their perception except that it normalizes from the diseased state, even when they know that implants are present within their brain. And now we keep replacing biological neurons with electronic ones - sort of like the ship of Theseus. I would argue that as this part biological part electronic construct retains its time perception, if we ultimately replace the whole network, it will retain the same perception. We can extend this to consciousness itself although the network will be much more complicated.

Thanks, this is what I was trying to articulate.

How is this issue different from not having a first-person experience of another person's consciousness? Unless your real issue is that it's a computer rather than a person - but that is the same issue that Chinese Room-type thought experiments try to capitalize on (confusingly, in my opinion). — SophistiCat

I second this. If we consider the statement of a supposedly conscious computer to be unreliable then the same should apply to any other person also and then everyone other than ourselves may be a zombie.

Thanks, this is what I was trying to articulate. — debd

:up:

It's perfect as you wrote it. All I did was gild the lily.

That's true. We assume other people are conscious because they look like us, and are biological organisms, like ourselves. But we don't know for sure. How can we? That does not, however, change my point about the internal mental states of computers forever being a mystery.

The program enables the person in the room to pass the Turing Test for understanding Chinese but he does not understand a word of Chinese.
Now consider the room to be our brain and the person is replaced by a chain of neurons. — debd

So are we just gonna ignore the fact that the person in the room passed the program instruction, and not the understanding of the Chinese language?
Sometimes I feel that thought scenarios like this is more like a sleight of hand in logical argument -- as long as the reader keeps losing track of what is being said, the argument keeps its force.

I think that consciousness or understanding or perception at a particular point of time is the function of the structural and physiological state of the neuronal network at that point in time. — debd

What makes a neuronal network conscious but not a silicon network? Sounds like biological bias to me.

Also, this seems to be 3rd person view of understanding. What is the 1st person view of understanding or consciousness or perception. I know I'm conscious, understanding and perceiving by different means than you would know I'm conscious, understanding and perceiving. Why?

This suggests that consciousness is unlike all other physical properties. — RogueAI

That does not, however, change my point about the internal mental states of computers forever being a mystery. — RogueAI

Only because of thinking of mind and body in conflicting dualistic terms creates the problem in the first place.

OK, how would you go about verifying that a computer is conscious?

Step one would be to define consciousness in a way that addresses why first person evidence of consciousness is different than third person evidence of consciousness.

That begs another question: why don't we have an agreed upon scientific definition of consciousness yet? Maybe 100 years ago that would have been asking too much, but at this stage in the game? It's remarkable we still can't define what consciousness is, and yet another sign that the phenomenon is outside the "realm" of science.

I think Searle's thought experiment was rather a reaction to reductive takes on consciousness, particularly computational, functionalist ones: — SophistiCat

Well, yes. That's what an algorithm is.

Minds, Brains, And Programs

This version has replies to critics.

My response to the systems theory is quite simple: let the individual internalize all of these elements of the system. He memorizes the rules in the ledger and the data banks of Chinese symbols, and he does all the calculations in his head. The individual then incorporates the entire system. There isn't anything at all to the system that he does not encompass. We can even get rid of the room and suppose he works outdoors. All the same, he understands nothing of the Chinese, and a fortiori neither does the system, because there isn't anything in the system that isn't in him. If he doesn't understand, then there is no way the system could understand because the system is just a part of him.

Is the problem that the sentence is actually nonsense, or that there are no instructions for translating such an arrangement of scribbles? — Harry Hindu

The problem is more that "A nice derangement of epitaphs" could not be translated into Chinese without losing the joke. Hence, there are aspects of language that are not captured by such an algorithmic translation process.

So are we just gonna ignore the fact that the person in the room passed the program instruction, and not the understanding of the Chinese language? — Caldwell

No, just that the person passing the instruction is replaced by a neuron or a network of neurons passing the instructions without having any intrinsic understanding of chinese even though the brain as a whole does.

This version has replies to critics.

My response to the systems theory is quite simple: let the individual internalize all of these elements of the system. He memorizes the rules in the ledger and the data banks of Chinese symbols, and he does all the calculations in his head. The individual then incorporates the entire system. There isn't anything at all to the system that he does not encompass. We can even get rid of the room and suppose he works outdoors. All the same, he understands nothing of the Chinese, and a fortiori neither does the system, because there isn't anything in the system that isn't in him. If he doesn't understand, then there is no way the system could understand because the system is just a part of him. — Banno

If he internalizes all the rules in his head(brain) then effectively he is learning and understanding chinese. This is what we do when we learn a new language. Memorizing all the rules does not allow me to answer questions like "How do you feel today?", "What are you grateful for today?". This has been posited as a reply to Searle by D Cole.