2002 John Searle Adds A Clarifying Caveat To Dennett's Characterization
John R. Searle and Daniel Dennett having been poking at one another's philosophies of mind (cf philosophy of mind) for the past 30 years. Dennett hews to the Strong AI point of view that the logical structure of an algorithm is sufficient to explain mind; Searle, of Chinese room fame claims that logical structure is not sufficient, rather that: "Syntax is by itself not sufficient for semantic content " (italics in original, Searle 2002:16). In other words, the "meaning" of symbols is relative to the mind that is using them; an algorithm—a logical construct—by itself is insufficient for a mind.
Searle urges a note of caution to those who want to define algorithmic (computational) processes as intrinsic to nature (e.g. cosmology, physics, chemistry, etc.):
- "Computation . . . is observer-relative, and this is because computation is defined in terms of symbol manipulation, but the notion of a 'symbol' is not a notion of physics or chemistry. Something is a symbol only if it is used, treated or regarded as a symbol. The Chinese room argument showed that semantics is not intrinsic to syntax. But what this shows is that syntax is not intrinsic to physics. . . . Something is a symbol only relative to some observer, user or agent who assigns a symbolic interpretation to it. . . you can assign a computational interpretation to anything. But if the question asks, 'Is consciousness intrinsically computational?' the answer is: nothing is intrinsically computational. Computation exists only relative to some agent or observer who imposes a computational interpretation on some phenomenon. This is an obvious point. I should have seen it ten years ago but I did not." (italics added, p. 17)
Read more about this topic: Algorithm Characterizations
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