I’d like to add a rebuttal I tend to agree with: You’re only a component of a larger system, and the whole system (you + the room + your list of instructions) does encode some understanding, otherwise a chinese speaker wouldn’t be able to interact with the room in any meaningful way.
In almost any system, you can look at a specific part and argue that part doesn’t fulfill a property that the entire system taken as one does.
But in this case you is unnecessary if a mechanism can perform that part, and understanding then completely doesn’t rely on consciousness. This is a bit weird way to think about it, but it seems to be a semantic difference
No, you’re still a necessary part of the system, since otherwise there is no interaction possible. And yes, I don’t think understanding relies on consciousness.
Difference in if that is required and if ‘understanding’ is a quality that a system can have. For instance I feel that a gravity coin sorter is made with understanding but does not have understanding
It’s not really possible to give a concrete answer without a concrete definition of “understanding”. But unless you assume supernatural explanations, either systems must be able to “understand”, or humans are also incapable of “understanding”, since we ourselves are physical systems too.
For instance I feel that a gravity coin sorter is made with understanding but does not have understanding
I get the example and agree that such a coin sorter does not meaningfully have an understanding of gravity. But IMO it does have a (minimal) understanding of the different coins you’re sorting, since it contains a mechanism for differentiating between their sizes.
Imagine we replaced the gravity mechanism with a bunch of actuators controlled by organic neurons, which are connected to something like an eye. The neurons fire and cause the actuators to sort the coins. Now, if say the neurons just react to brightness levels it’d be hard to argue there’s an understanding. But if the neurons are part of a real human brain, they can definitely understand the coins etc. and sort based on their understanding.
As you take away more parts of said brain, when does it lose the understanding?
I’d like to add a rebuttal I tend to agree with: You’re only a component of a larger system, and the whole system (you + the room + your list of instructions) does encode some understanding, otherwise a chinese speaker wouldn’t be able to interact with the room in any meaningful way.
In almost any system, you can look at a specific part and argue that part doesn’t fulfill a property that the entire system taken as one does.
But in this case you is unnecessary if a mechanism can perform that part, and understanding then completely doesn’t rely on consciousness. This is a bit weird way to think about it, but it seems to be a semantic difference
No, you’re still a necessary part of the system, since otherwise there is no interaction possible. And yes, I don’t think understanding relies on consciousness.
Where is the semantic difference?
Difference in if that is required and if ‘understanding’ is a quality that a system can have. For instance I feel that a gravity coin sorter is made with understanding but does not have understanding
It’s not really possible to give a concrete answer without a concrete definition of “understanding”. But unless you assume supernatural explanations, either systems must be able to “understand”, or humans are also incapable of “understanding”, since we ourselves are physical systems too.
I get the example and agree that such a coin sorter does not meaningfully have an understanding of gravity. But IMO it does have a (minimal) understanding of the different coins you’re sorting, since it contains a mechanism for differentiating between their sizes.
Imagine we replaced the gravity mechanism with a bunch of actuators controlled by organic neurons, which are connected to something like an eye. The neurons fire and cause the actuators to sort the coins. Now, if say the neurons just react to brightness levels it’d be hard to argue there’s an understanding. But if the neurons are part of a real human brain, they can definitely understand the coins etc. and sort based on their understanding.
As you take away more parts of said brain, when does it lose the understanding?
It’s still the same argument. If the conversation is carried on your end by a bunch of if-else instructions, there’s no consciousness to be found.
Yes, I think it proves that understanding does not require consciousness.
So you’re saying that my program that does
if obj isinstance cat: obj.pet(), understands what a cat is?No, and if you want to discuss the philosophical idea, please don’t waste my time with dumb questions.