X-Message-Number: 4045
From: 
Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 12:51:20 -0500
Subject: SCI. CRYONICS chinese closet

Thanks to John Clark (#4033) for the DNA portion of the posting, which I
found useful.

Thanks to Bruce Zimov (#4044) for the clarifications and refrerences on
symbols. 

Thanks to Mr. Clark also (#4036) for his clear statement that he regards the
Turing Test as reliable and necessary, and that only the Turing Test saves us
from solipsism. Now let me try one more time to show that the Turing Test is
HIGHLY unreliable and is most definitely NOT needed to save us from
solipsism. 

The latter first. Mr. Clark has said before, and now again implied, that all
I know about him I know through observation of his external behavior. This is
a giant error. I know a great many generic things about him indirectly,
through my general experience of the world and people. In particular, I have
good reason to believe that his physiology is very similar to mine; now since
I know I have feeling, and since not only his behavior but also his
appearance and physiology are similar to mine, I have good reason to conclude
that he has a subjective life also.

If I were confronted with a black box, or a tin woodman, I would have
reservations about imputing consciousness to them, regardless of the quality
of their conversation. I wouldn't deny the possibility, but I would reserve
judgment. If we have to go through these motions again, let's look once more
at the Chinese Closet.

THE CHINESE CLOSET:

Everybody knows about John Searle's Chinese Room argument, so I won't repeat
it here. Criticisms have been many, the most common one being that the Room
as a whole DOES understand Chinese, even if the human operator doesn't.
Analogies used are ant colonies, which some consider to exhibit intelligence
even though individual ants are not intelligent, and the human brain, which
is intelligent although the individual neurons are not. Saved by that good
old catch-all, "emergence." But now let's look at the closet.

My "Chinese Closet" is just a very small Chinese Room, with no human
operator--only a relatively simple mechanism that passes out Chinese messages
in exchange for English messages passed in. It can only handle a limited
number of very simple messages, and if taxed beyond its capacity doesn't
respond, or answers "Huh?"

Rules: According to the usual Turing rules,  the hidden program (if there is
one) will do its best to simulate an honest and responsive person; and the
real hidden person, if there is one, will do his best to be convincing as a
person. We do NOT use this rule. Instead, we use a more realistic rule that
would apply to unknown black boxes or visiting tin woodmen--namely, we can
assume nothing about the nature or motives or intentions of the Closet.  We
must base our conclusions exclusively on the objective external evidence--the
conversation the Closet produces or fails to produce.

Now, what can a rational observer conclude about the intelligence and
consciousness of the Closet? 

We can conclude that the Closet has at least enough "intelligence" to
translate English into Chinese and then respond in English, with a very small
repertory. We can conclude nothing whatever about the Closet's consciousness,
because we KNOW its conversation could be reproduced by a relatively simple,
unconscious piece of clockwork; and at the same time it MIGHT be conscious
(have subjectivity)--and indeed it might be conscious even if it could not
converse at all. Intelligence and feeling are ENTIRELY separate.

We didn't really need the Closet; it should be obvious from the outset that
robots (without subjectivity) MIGHT (in principle) function at a high enough
effective level "intellectually" to fool any given observer; and that the
presence or absence of feeling and consciousness can only be determined when
we know their physical nature.

Of course, when we know the physiology of feeling in mammals, that may still
leave open the question of possible feeling in inorganic matter, but at least
we will then have some clues. Until then, it is not warranted to ASSUME that
consciousness can exist on an inorganic substrate, or that consciousness is
nothing but symbol manipulation.

Robert Ettinger

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