I was disappointed by Searle's refusal to budge from the foundation of his historical view. I want to go back and listen to his responses to Kurzweil's comments because I stopped listening shortly after he started to respond.
I disagree with the view point that the mind is a semantic processor in the way Searle was arguing against computational theories of mind. As a Christian I have no problem with the idea that there is a lot that we do not understand about conscious experience and I think that the explanations of how consciousness works may require theories about matter (and energy) that are unimaginable to us now. However, the idea that the basis of natural intelligence is not a syntactic computational device (of some sort) is too far out there for me. I also noticed that his distinction between epistemological knowledge and ontological knowledge is excessive. I think it is very useful to make that kind of distinction and I mean that it is very important to be able to think about that. But on the other hand the idea that epistemological knowledge cannot be used to encode ontological knowledge is so far removed from commonsense that I have to reject the idea that there is some kind of absolute distinction. Jim Bromer On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 5:14 PM, EdFromNH . <[email protected]> wrote: > Jim Bromer, > > I only listened to about 15 minutes a the start of the video (it seemed > similar to previous speeches I have heard from him), and skipped ahead to > hear Kurzweil questioning him about 40 minutes in, and then quit after > hearing his response to Ray. > > One of Searle's main mistakes is his claim that digital computers are > syntactical, that humans think largely semantically (which I agree with), > and that syntactical computation can never compute semantics (which I > disagree with). One of the major philosophical advancements in > understanding cognitive computing is that through grounding with massive > experientially connected experiential data syntax can, in fact, compute > semantics. The advances being made in deep learning strongly support this. > For example, deep learning indicates the visual meaning of a concept such as > "cat", with all of its rich possible visual variations can be understood by > what Searle calls a syntactical system. If deep learning systems for vision > were connected with deep learning systems for hearing, touch, emotions, > goals, behaviors, etc, the combined system would have even a much richer > understanding of the meaning of a word such as "cat". > > So Searle's thinking is deeply flawed. But Searle's notion that > consciousness requires computation having qualities shared by biological > brains that are not shared by current computers, even current deep learning > systems, is not clearly wrong. > > Ed Porter > > P.S. Jim, If you get this message. please given me a brief ping to say you > have. For the last several months all of my posts to [email protected] have > been returned with an error message. I have emailed Ben directly to ask > what the problem is and he has not responded. I am trying to determine if I > have been ejected from this list because I dared to ask to publicly debate > with Ben about his dismissal of my Computational Awarenes Theory of > Consciousness, or if there is some technical error. > > On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 5:22 PM, Jim Bromer <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> John Searle: "Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence" | Talks at Google. >> I just started listening to it, but it is interesting. He starts with >> epistemic objectivity and ontological subjectivity (but promises to >> avoid using too many polysyllabic words.) >> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHKwIYsPXLg >> Jim Bromer >> >> >> ------------------------------------------- >> AGI >> Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now >> RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/8630185-a57a74e1 >> Modify Your Subscription: >> https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; >> Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com > > ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
