Can Computers Understand? :: essays research papers

Can Computers understand?1) Thinking is the hallmark of understanding.2) Only special machines peck think.3) If something brush aside think it can understand.4) Only special machines that can think can understand.5) "Mental" states and their resulting actions are products of thecenter of activity (brain).6) To understand, thoughts must be produced by the brain.7) A electronic computers mental states and events are controlled by a program.8) The program is not a product of the computer.9) A computer does not produce "thoughts" in its brain.10) A computer cannot understand.John Searle addresses the point of the ability of ArtificialIntelligence (AI) to understand, in header Brains, and Programs. His mainargument is that because AIs are computers and computers defend no thoughts oftheir own, they cannot understand. Any actions being performed to seizebehavior are confined by the programs available to the computer. He presentsthe example of a man linking Chinese ch aracters and appearing to know thelanguage, but in mankind the man is just following the instructions given to him( the program). This example serves well to explain how although a computer canlook like it understands a story, it can do no more than "go through themotions."Of course such a definitive standpoint on an issue as controversial asthe capacity of an AI to understand will draw many critics. The criticism ofhis theory that I find to be the most credible is The Other Mind Reply offeredby Yale University. This line of thinking asks if behavior is what we candetermine the presence of experience through, and an AI passes a behavioral test,why dont we attribute cognition to it?     I myself do not believe in the philosophy of AI understanding, becauseto support either side on this issue one must have a belief for or against the