Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

Thinking Machines 93instincts. We can have both the agility and discernment of humanthought and a mechanistic framework in which to explain it. The laterchapters, which try to explain common sense, the emotions, social relations,humor, and the arts, build on the foundation of a complex computationalpsyche.THE DEFENDING CHAMPIONOf course, if it was unimaginable that the computational theory of mindwas false, that would mean it had no content. In fact, it has beenattacked head-on. As one would expect of a theory that has become soindispensable, pea-shooting is not enough; nothing less than underminingthe foundations could bring it down. Two flamboyant writers havetaken on the challenge. Both have chosen weapons suitable to the occasion,though the weapons are as opposite as can be: one is an appealto down-home common sense, the other to esoteric physics and mathematics.The first attack comes from the philosopher John Searle. Searlebelieves that he refuted the computational theory of mind in 1980 with athought experiment he adapted from another philosopher, Ned Block(who, ironically, is a major proponent of the computational theory).Searle's version has become famous as the Chinese Room. A man whoknows no Chinese is put in a room. Pieces of paper with squiggles onthem are slipped under the door. The man has a long list of complicatedinstructions such as "Whenever you see [squiggle squiggle squiggle],write down [squoggle squoggle squoggle]." Some of the rules tell him toslip his scribbles back out under the door. He gets good at following theinstructions. Unknown to him, the squiggles and squoggles are Chinesecharacters, and the instructions are an artificial intelligence program foranswering questions about stories in Chinese. As far as a person on theother side of the door knows, there is a native Chinese speaker in theroom. Now, if understanding consists of running a suitable computerprogram, the guy must understand Chinese, because he is running sucha program. But the guy doesn't understand Chinese, not a word of it; he'sjust manipulating symbols. Therefore, understanding—and, by extension,any aspect of intelligence—is not the same as symbol manipulationor computation.