Kant on Analytic & Synthetic Judgements

 

According to Kant, analytic judgements are made up of subject and a predicate. The predicate expresses nothing which isn't already contained in the subject.

Take this analytic judgement:

         “All bodies are extended.”

Here the subject is “all bodies” and the predicate is “(are) extended”. Within the subject is contained the concept [extended]. According to Kant, “I have not amplified the concept of body, but only analysed it."

Now take the following:

      “All bodies have weight.”

Here the subject is again “all bodies” and this time the predicate is “have weight”. This judgement is synthetic because the predicate “have weight” isn't contained in the subject “all bodies”. This predicate, therefore, “amplifies” rather than “analyses” the subject.

We now have two terms which sum up what's just been written:

       “explicative judgement” – adds nothing to the subject = analytic

       “ampliative judgement” – increases the given cognition = synthetic

In what way do we know the analytic judgement to be true or false? We know it a priori. Take this judgement:

       “Gold is a yellow metal.”

The concepts involved in the judgement above are empirical in nature. However, the statement above, according to Kant, can still be known to be true a priori. The reason for this is that, again, the predicate “yellow metal” adds nothing to the subject “gold”. According to Kant, we “require no experience beyond our concept of gold”. Yellowness (as it were) is contained in the concept [gold]. That means that the statement can be known to be true a priori.

Arithmetic

According to Kant, arithmetical judgements are all synthetic and not analytic, as was commonly thought in his time (e.g. by Hume). However

         7+ 5 = 12

is still knowable a priori; though it's nevertheless synthetic. Arithmetical statements are a priori “because they carry with them necessity, which cannot be obtained from experience”.

Why isn’t the above a mere analytic judgement such as “a = a”? Why is it synthetic and a priori? After all

         7 + 5 = 12

basically means

        12 = 12

which is a tautology of the kind

        A = A.

And

        7 + 5 = 13

would be a contradiction of the kind

    12 = 13

or

     A = B

Why does Kant think that 7 + 5 = 12 is a priori as well as synthetic? This is how Kant himself puts it:

“The concept of twelve is by no means thought by merely thinking of the combination of seven and five…”

Kant continues:

“…analyse this possible sum as we may, we shall not discover twelve in the concept.”

We can't find the concept [12] within the concept [7 + 5]. What more do we need? According to Kant:

“We must go beyond these concepts by calling to our aid some intuition corresponding to one of them, i.e., either our five fingers or five points…”

This is very difficult to grasp without an explication of the notion of intuition. However, it's the intuition itself that's synthetic. Therefore the “five fingers or five points” needed for the intuition are derived from experience. Therefore they're synthetic (or the experience is). The judgement is synthetic a priori. To use Kant’s terms, the concept [12] is an “amplification” of the concept [7 + 5].

What about geometry?

Geometry

Take the following principle of geometry:

            “A straight line is the shortest path between two points.”

According to Kant, that statement is a synthetic judgement. Though it's also knowable a priori. It's relatively easy to see why the above is knowable a priori, but why is it also synthetic? Kant says:

“The concept of the shortest is therefore altogether additional and cannot be obtained by any analysis of the concept of the straight line.”

The concept [shortest] isn't contained in the concept a [straight line]. Or, more accurately, the concept [the shortest path between two points] isn't contained in the concept [a straight line]. Here again, according to Kant, “intuition must come to aid us”. Presumably here the (empirical) intuition is this:

           a------------------------------------------b

That is, a straight line between two points.

Kant then summarises all the above. He calls synthetic a priori judgements “apodeictic”; just as we would call an analytic judgement “apodeictic”. Such judgements are apodeictic because the predicate is already contained in the subject. However, unlike a pure analytic judgement, such as

             “All bodies are bodies.”

we need a “necessarily present intuition” which supplies the synthetic part of the judgement or statement. Unlike the above analytic statement,

      

“the predicate [12] belongs to this concept [7 + 5] necessarily indeed, yet not directly but indirectly by means of a necessarily present intuition”.

Kant went beyond the mere empirical synthesis of perceptions. He thought that there is a priori synthesis too. When perceptions are synthesized a priori, they are given, according to Kant, “universal validity”.

 

E.O. Wilson’s Ethics isn't Ethics (Is isn't Ought)

Did the biologist and naturalist E.O. Wilson “derive an ought from an is”?… Or did he ignore the ought entirely?

“Thus at least man comes to feel, through acquired and perhaps inherited habit, that it is best for him to obey his most persistent impulses. The imperious word OUGHT [my capitals] seems merely to imply the consciousness of the existence of a rule of conduct, however it may have originated.”

— Charles Darwin (From his Descent of Man — the actual passage is here.)

[Note: I wrote this essay some years ago (hence the square brackets) and would probably write it in a different way today. I even contemplated adding a question mark at the end of the title. That said, I don’t have any big problems with anything within it. Indeed, if I did have problems with it, then there’d be no point in publishing it here on Medium.

So to make things clear. I have no serious problems with evolutionary theory, applying the sciences to non-scientific issues, etc. In fact, broadly speaking, I’m a naturalist. So I have a lot of sympathy with the following passage from Daniel Dennett:

“If ‘ought’ cannot be derived from ‘is,’ just what can ‘ought’ be derived from? Is ethics an entirely ‘autonomous’ field of inquiry? Does it float, untethered to facts from any other discipline or tradition? Do our moral intuitions arise from some inexplicable ethics module implanted in our brains (or our ‘hearts,’ to speak with tradition)?”

That quoted, when it comes to ethics, I do believe that there are complications… as will hopefully be shown in the following essay.]

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Edward Osborne Wilson (1929 — 2021) was an American biologist and naturalist.

Wilson was a humanist laureate of the International Academy of Humanism, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and a New York Times bestselling author.

Wilson was widely recognized as one of the most important scientists of his generation. He received more than 150 awards and medals. (Several animal species have also been named in his honour.)

Finally, Wilson has been called “the father of sociobiology”. He also been called “the father of biodiversity” for his environmental advocacy. More relevantly to the following essay, his ideas on ethics and religion have been praised, criticised and much discussed.

E.O. Wilson’s Naturalised Ethics?

It’s not surprising that someone who believes in (universal) historical and scientific consilience should have believed that ethics is a suitable subject for for scientific scrutiny.

(Consilience: “the principle that evidence from independent, unrelated sources can ‘converge’ on strong conclusions”.)

So how did E.O. Wilson explain science’s relatively new-found interest in ethics? Wilson argued:

“The objective meaning of ethical precepts comprises the mental processes that assemble them and the genetic and cultural histories by which they evolved. Those who think that an is/ought gap exists have not reasoned through the way the gap is filled by mental process and history.”

This is a very interesting passage from Wilson. For example, what on earth do the words “the objective meaning of ethical precepts” mean?… Actually, it’s fairly clear what Wilson was getting at. Still, it’s just an odd use of the words “the objective meaning of”. In addition, Wilson even appears to completely misunderstand the “is/ought gap”…

Either that, or he simply dismissed it!

If Wilson did dismiss it, then good arguments and reasons would need to be given for such a dismissal.

In any case, clearly Wilson was putting a purely descriptive position on “ethical precepts”, not a normative one. Perhaps it follows (at least to some people) from this that it’s not ethics at all! Instead, it’s simply the scientific study of human ethics…

Wilson might well have dismissed that just-stated distinction.

In more detail, Wilson’s position can be seen as being purely scientific (which may not be a bad thing). That’s primarily because of statements such as the following:

“[E]thical precepts comprises the mental processes that assemble them and the genetic and cultural histories by which they evolved.”

Thus these passages are about what we (whoever “we” are) take ethical precepts to be — not what ethical precepts are or what they should be…

Again, Wilson might well have taken these distinctions to be entirely bogus.

So all this is similar to what naturalised epistemology is to traditional epistemology. Here, instead, we have (what seems to be) a naturalised ethics. However, if ethics is intrinsically normative, then perhaps it can’t ever be (fully) naturalised. (Yet no doubt natural phenomena can — and will — still come into the equation.)

Isn’t ethics about how we should live, not how we do live?

In that sense, then, Wilson’s position isn’t ethics at all. It’s the scientific (i.e., biological, neuroscientific, psychological, sociological, etc.) study of human ethics.

More concretely, if Wilson believed that ethics is the study of the “genetic and cultural histories by which [ethical precepts] evolved”, then we can’t do anything about such causal aetiologies of our ethical standards and principles. That’s obviously because such things have already happened. Therefore this is simply a causal account of what we believe and do in the ethical sphere.

Perhaps the study of the “mental process that assemble [our ethical precepts]” isn’t itself in the domain of ethics. Isn’t it the domains of the sciences?

The Is-Ought Gap

Moreover, how is the is/ought gap (or is-ought problem) bridged simply by reasoning about this “mental process and history”?

All this is still the realm of the is and was, not the ought.

Just because we can fill in the gap (as Wilson put it) between the original causes of our beliefs and principles and the beliefs and principles themselves which followed, that alone doesn’t take us into the normative (or from the is to the ought) — even if the gap is filled with “mental processes and history” or whatever else. By filling in the causal gaps between causes and their effects (ethical precepts in Wilson’s book), then we still don’t take the ethical from the is to the ought (or from the descriptive to the normative).

So it seems very unclear why Wilson believed that the is/ought gap has been bridged or “filled’.

How will acquiring knowledge of the causes of our ethical precepts tell us whether or not our precepts are the right or the wrong ones? The causal or scientific facts of genetics (or whatever scientific data we can find) may help us understand why we hold our ethical precepts; though not why we should still hold them.

The English philosopher, writer and journalist Julian Baggini (1968 — ) sees some of these problems too. He writes:

“The idea here seems to be that ethical precepts — for example, the incest taboo — have their roots in particular genetic and cultural histories. It is clear that understanding such histories will be a useful tool in making ethical judgements. What is less clear is that this is a way out of the is/ought problem. After all, I ask [Wilson], are there not circumstances in which we will do well to struggle to behave in ways that might seem contrary to our natural instincts, as, for example, with respect to ethical precepts rooted in a mistrust of strangers or in aggression responses?”

We will indeed learn much from the aetiology of the incest taboo. However, we won’t learn whether or not that taboo is right or wrong from studying its “roots in particular genetic and cultural histories”. This knowledge, of course, may indeed help us in other ways. It will tell us, for example, that the taboo wasn’t passed down from heaven or that it’s not a non-natural precept which we somehow “intuit”. What’s more, all that scientific knowledge may — or will — indeed have an affect on our “ethical judgements”. However, that knowledge will not, at least not on its own, determine the conclusions of our ethical judgements…

So what will?

Wilson seemed to be arguing that we can indeed derive what we ought to do from what is (or what was) the case. That is, if something is genetically and/or culturally inscribed, then it must be a correct ethical precept.

But that clearly doesn’t follow.

Our natural instincts, for example, may be bad instincts. As Baggini puts it when he argues that

“we will do well to struggle to behave in ways that might seem contrary to our natural instincts, as, for example, with respect to ethical precepts rooted in a mistrust of strangers or in aggression responses”.

Of course certain natural instincts may also be good instincts. So it just depends…

[I can be found on Twitter here.]

Carnap on Linguistic Frameworks (or Conceptual Schemes)

According to Rudolph Carnap’s approach, x, y, and z can be variables of anything you want. Carnap might have simply said here that these are questions for the scientist or the ontologist. Quine, for example, let science (though not scientists) decide these matters.

If a priori or necessary truths are true simply via linguistic convention (in Carnap's scheme), then what’s the point of them? If they bear no relation to the world, the mind or a non-spatiotemporal realm (take your pick), what purpose do they serve? How do we get outside language or “schemes”? Do we even need to get outside language/convention? If not, why not?

Conventionalists may say that we have good reasons for adopting conventions. What are those reasons? And if they're reasons outside language and conventions, doesn’t the conventionalist stop being a conventionalist by adopting those reasons? I guess that realists would happily accept that we need conventions. No problem there. The realist can’t say anything without conventions; even if these conventions do indeed duplicate, in some way, the actual nature of the world.

As Karl Popper might have put it, if a conventionalist’s law becomes analytic and therefore unfalsifiable, then what’s the point of it? It may help you predict; though what if the predictions are incorrect or the laws postulate non-existents? If what's analytic becomes law-like in this respect, isn’t it a dangerous law in that it halts philosophical or scientific advancement?

It's true that conventions aren't forced on us by nature. (What would it mean to have a convention forced upon us?) Even realists would accept that nature doesn’t force itself on us. However, we have causal interactions with nature and these causal interactions impinge on us - even if they don’t force us to speak nature's very own language. Nothing forces the realist to say, “There are quarks and planets.” However, there are causal reasons for him to say what he says. If there are no restraints on the adoption of conventions, then anything goes and we have…well, relativism (if with lots of added logical symbols and fancy technical/scientific terms).

Why can’t the realist be a realist and still accept (with the conventionalist) that there's more than one description (or explanation) of a given “space-time point” (in Carnap's scheme), event or object? I don’t see why a realist must uphold a single “correct description” of a given space-time point. That, surely, isn't necessarily entailed by realism. (Think here of Husserl’s metaphysical “positions”.)

Again, of course conventions are freely chosen. I think that the realist can accept this. The "nature forcing itself on us” metaphor isn't very helpful in this debate. I don’t believe that, for example, realists were really horrified by Poincare's admission that contradictory scientific principles can be maintained. Why can't the realist accept Poincare’s position too? You could accept and still believe that your principle (or theory) is dis-confirmable in the future. The realist must accept and live with the alternative descriptions (or explanations) of the world even while accepting that, of course, some are correct and some are false. One can be a realist and say that “there is a way the world is” and still live with – many? – alternative descriptions (or explanations) of the world.

What being said here (if rather counter-intuitively) is that realists are conventionalists (in some ways, at least) and conventionalists are realists (in some ways, at least).

Carnap's Scheme

In theory T certain new terms are postulated (say, a, b, c…). Does a Carnapian need reasons for postulating a, b, c…? Is it the very nature of postulation that they're assumed without proof or even evidence? If they're postulated variables with objects, properties, classes, etc. as their extensions, then what is the Carnapian’s ontological position on these things? For example, what is to stop a Carnapian from saying that a’s reference or extension is a round square?

Does “anything go” if it's via stipulation? In addition, Carnapian analyticity makes it the case that what's analytic is analytic because the terms are so devised to be analytic (“by fiat”, as Quine put it). A priori analytic statements are true and analytic because they're constructed to be true and analytic. So didn't Carnap restrict the range of his own variables? Or would Carnap have said that his variables range over what scientists say they range over (as Quine did)? However, if philosophers accept everything that science (rather than a science or scientists) postulates, then why would science need philosophy at all (that's if it does need it)?

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*) Carnap's "linguistic frameworks" approach can be found in various places. This piece is mainly based on the paper 'Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology'; which was first published in 1950 and later found in Carnap's book Meaning and Necessity.

John Searle says “it's all syntax and no semantics”

i) Introduction

ii) In Reference to Reference

iii) Mental Content

This is a simple introduction to the philosopher John Searle's main argument against artificial intelligence (AI). This means that it doesn't come down either for or against that argument.

The main body of the Searle's argument is how he distinguishes syntax from syntax. Thus the well-known Chinese Room scenario is simply Searle's means of expressing what he sees as the vital distinction to be made between syntax and semantics when it comes to debates about computers and AI generally.

In Reference to Reference

One way in which John Searle puts his case is by reference to reference. That position is summed up simply when Searle (in his 'Minds, Brains, and Programs' of 1980) writes:

“Whereas the English subsystem knows that 'hamburgers' refers to hamburgers, the Chinese subsystem knows only that 'squiggle squiggle' is followed by 'squoggle squoggle'.”

So whereas what Searle calls the “English subsystem” involves a complex reference-relation which involved entities in the world, mental states, knowledge of meanings, intentionality, consciousness, memory and other such things; the Chinese subsystem is only following rules. (The computer will have a memory; though a memory with none of the features talked about here.) That is, when the input 'squiggle squiggle' is fed in, the Chinese subsystem delivers (or computes) the answer 'squoggle squoggle'. This is really a simple case of the computer (or Chinese subsystem) following x with y. And that's simply the result of following a rule (or an algorithm). Again, knowledge of meanings, intentionality, consciousness, etc. aren't required in this simple case of following a rule/algorithm.

When its puts like this it seems that the computer/Chinese subsystem is a system which is of the same type as a thermometer; except that the system is more complex and it involves inscriptions and rules/algorithms. (Then again, a thermometer can be given a computational or mathematical explanation/description too!)

Margaret A. Boden (in her paper 'Escaping from the Chinese room' - 1986) offers a little more detail on what she calls the “causal semantics” of reference (whether beliefs or individual words/terms). She writes:

“In a causal semantics, the meaning of a symbol (whether simple or complex) is to be sought by reference to its causal links with other phenomena.”

Above a beyond that, Boden does ask a couple of questions about this aspect of causal semantics. She writes:

“The central questions are 'What causes the symbol to be built and/or activated?' and 'What happens as a result of it?' The answers will sometimes mention external objects and events to an observer, sometimes they will not.”

The first point to make here is that it's obvious that a computer (or even a man in a Chinese room) has no causal links to the things it's answering questions about. Of course it can be said that there are indirect causal links. Indeed some theories of causal reference (or semantics) have tackled these indirect (or circuitous) causal links.

For example, the data that's fed into a computer has causal links to external objects care-of the computer programmer. It's the programmer himself who has causal links (expressed in the data which is fed into the computer) to external objects or events. (This parallels Searle's “as if” intentionality.)

The final clause about sometimes not mentioning external objects is possibly a reference to some of the problems found with causal semantics. Such problems include that of a reference-relation to a non-existent entity or to an event which occurred in the past. There are various solutions to these problems. However, I don't think they are relevant to the issue under discussion because some of these causal accounts of reference to non-existent entities still supply us with causal explanations.

Mental Content

Searle also argues for his position in terms of mental content; though reference itself will involve mental content.

The usual way that other people have put Searle's position is by saying it's a case of syntax vs. semantics. Though Searle expresses pretty much the same thing here in terms of form vs. mental content. This is how Searle himself puts it:

“... the program is purely formal, but the intentional states are not in that way formal. They are defined in terms of their content, not their form.”

That's the technical terms “form” and “content” out of the way. What, exactly, does Searle mean by them? He continues:

“The belief that it is raining, for example, is not defined as a certain formal shape. But as a certain mental content with conditions of satisfaction, a direction of fit and the like. Indeed the belief as such hasn't even got a formal shape in this syntactic sense, since one and the same belief can be given an indefinite number of different syntactic expressions in different linguistic systems.”

Here we find two technical terms/phrases which were (as far as I know) coined by Searle himself. In fact they're more or less two ways of saying the same thing: viz., “conditions of satisfaction” and “direction of fit”.

Conditions of satisfaction seems to be a phrase which belongs to a theory of reference in that in order for a word or a belief (in Searle's example) to have a reference to something outside the head (or beyond the page), it must have conditions of satisfaction. There must be something in the world (a condition) which satisfies the belief (or word). In Searle's example, the belief that it is raining has the condition of satisfaction if and only if it is indeed raining. (This appears to be similar to a Tarskian T sentence in which the sentence is simply disquoted to provide its truth conditions.)

As for “direction of fit”, this seems to be a theory within (mental) intentionality in that a belief (or a word) must have directedness (or an “intentional relation” to) something outside the head and in the world. However, the phrase “direction of fit” seems equally suitable to a theory of reference in that a reference-relation itself will require a direction of fit.

It certainly seems true that a belief itself couldn't possibly have a “formal shape”; at least not until it's given a formal shape when expressed in words or symbols. As mental content only, it has no formal shape or syntax. Indeed it can be said that no example of mental content could have a formal shape. (Except in the indirect sense that beliefs refer to things which have shapes or that mental images can be said to have shapes or at least be about – or representations of – shapes.)

I've just mentioned that non-formal beliefs or mental content generally can indeed be given formal shape when expressed in words or symbols. Searle himself says that

“the same belief can be given an indefinite number of different syntactic expressions in different linguistic systems”.

That means that belief P can become, for example, S1, S2, S3... Sn when it's expressed. S1, S2, S3... Sn are the syntactic expressions of P. In all these cases, P remains the same; whereas S will differ syntactically. In other words, the belief that it is raining can become “It is raining”, Il pleut, 「雨が降っれます」or be given an artificial expression in some kind of computer code. The belief it is raining can even be expressed in Morse code; providing we have a translation manual and we know the translation.

Kurt Kurzweil's Systemhood Argument vs. Searle's Chinese Room Argument

“‘When we hear it said that wireless valves think,’ [Sir Geoffrey] Jefferson said, ‘we may despair of language.’ But no cybernetician had said the valves thought, no more than anyone would say that the nerve-cells thought. Here lay the confusion. It was the system as a whole that ‘thought’, in Alan’s [Turing] view…” — Andrew Hodges (from his book Alan Turing: the Enigma).

In his rewarding book, How to Create a Mind, Ray Kurzweil tackles John Searle’s Chinese room argument.

It’s a great book; though I do find its philosophical sections somewhat naïve. And that’s despite the book’s abundance of scientific and technical detail; as well as Kurzweil’s imaginative capabilities. Of course there’s no reason why a “world-renowned inventor, thinker and futurist” should also be an accomplished philosopher. That said, there’s also a danger of philosophers criticising him for not being so. 

Kurzweil says, for example, that all his critics tend to know about Watson (an “artificially intelligent computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language”) is that it’s a computer in a machine. He also says that some commentators don’t “acknowledge or respond to arguments I actually make”. He adds:

“I cannot say that Allen and similar critics would necessarily have been convinced by the argument I made in that book [The Singularity is Near], but at least he and others could have responded to what I actually wrote.” 

The problem is that, in the case of John Searle’s Chinese room argument, the same can be said about Ray Kurzweil case against that. Sure, you wouldn’t expect a full-frontal and elongated response to Searle in a popular science book like How to Create a Mind. Having said that, there is a great deal of detail and some complexity — at least when it comes to other issues and subjects — to be found in this book.

The Argument

Ray Kurzweil’s argument against Searle is extremely basic. He simply makes a distinction between Searle’s man-in-the-Chinese-room and that man’s rulebook. Basically, the man on his own doesn’t understand Chinese. However, the man and the rulebook, when taken together, do understand Chinese.

So instead of talking about a man and his rulebook, let’s talk about the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer and its “rulebook” (or set of algorithms). After all, this is all about human and computer minds.

Firstly, Kurzweil says that “the man in this thought experiment is comparable only to the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer”. However, “but the CPU is only part of the structure”. In Searle’s Chinese room, “it is the man with his rulebook that constitutes the whole system”.

Again, “the system does have an understanding of Chinese”; though the man on his own doesn’t.

The immediate reaction to this is how bringing two things (a man and a rulebook) together can, in and of itself, bring about a system’s understanding of Chinese. Why is a system of two or more parts automatically in a better position than a system with only one part? (That’s if a system can ever have only one part.) How and why does multiplicity and (as it were) systemhood bring about understanding? It can be said that the problem of (genuine) understanding has simply been replicated. It may indeed be the case that the addition of a rulebook to either a man or a CPU brings about true understanding; it’s just that Kurzweil doesn’t really say why it does so.

John Searle is of course aware of what’s called the “system reply”. Nonetheless, he doesn’t really talk about the same system as Kurzweil. Instead of a man and a rulebook (or a CPU and a set of algorithms), Searle (in his paper ‘Minds, brains, and programs’) writes:

“Suppose we put a computer inside a robot…. the computer would actually operate the robot in such a way that the robot does something very much like perceiving, walking, moving about…. The robot would, for example, have a television camera attached to it that enabled it to ‘see’.”

As I said, this system isn’t the same as Kurzweil’s: its more complex and has more parts. Thus, on Kurzweil’s own reasoning, it should stand more of a chance of being a mind (or even person) than a computer’s CPU and its set of algorithms.

Searle then talks about putting himself in the robot instead of a computer. However, neither scenario works for Searle. It’s still a case that all Searle-in-the-robot is doing is “manipulating formal symbols”. Indeed Searle-in-the-robot is simply

“the robot’s homunculus, [he] doesn’t know what’s going on. [He doesn’t] understand anything except the rules for symbol manipulation”.

Again, how does systemhood alone deliver understanding?

Ned Block on Systemhood

The American philosopher Ned Block, on the other hand, offers us a system which is very similar to Kurzweil’s. He too is impressed with the systemhood argument. In his ‘The Mind as Software in the Brain’ he states that

“we cannot reason from ‘Bill does not understand Chinese’ to ‘The system of which Bill is a part does not understand Chinese’…”.

Block continues: 

“[T]he whole system — man + programme + board + paper + input and output doors — does understand Chinese, even though the man who is acting as the CPU does not.”

Block adds one more point to the above. He writes:

“I argued above that the CPU is just one of many components. If the whole system understands Chinese, that should not lead us to expect the CPU to understand Chinese.”

Again, how does systemhood — automatically or even indirectly — generate understanding? Block hardly offers an argument other than complexity or that the addition of parts to a system may (or does) bring about understanding. Indeed he goes so far as to say that his own system could (or even does) have what he calls “thoughts”. He tells us that

“Searle uses the fact that you are not aware of the Chinese system’s thoughts as an argument that it has no thoughts. But this is an invalid argument. Real cases of multiple personalities are often cases in which one personality is unaware of the others”.

One part of Ned Block’s argument does seem to be correct. It doesn’t appear to be the case that 

if Searle-in-the-system doesn’t know the thoughts of the entire system, 

then consequently the system must have no thoughts either. 

Nonetheless, the question still remains as to how mere systemhood brings about understanding. It doesn’t matter if the CPU or Searle-in-the-system does — or does not — know what the entire system is thinking (or understanding) if mere systemhood can’t bring about thoughts (or understanding) in the first place. In other words, Searle-in-the-system (or the CPU) may in principle be unable to know if the system as a whole has thoughts or understands things — and yet at the same time it’s still the case that it doesn’t actually have thoughts or understand things.

Kurzweil’s Computer-Behaviourism?

Kurzweil says something that assumes much in its simplicity. He writes:

“That system [of a man and his rulebook] does have an understanding of Chinese; otherwise it would not be capable of convincingly answering questions in Chinese, which would violate Searle’s assumption for this thought experiment.”

What Kurzweil seems to be arguing is that if the system answers the questions, then, almost (or literally!) by definition, it must understand the questions. Full stop. This is a kind of behaviourist answer to the problem: 

If the system behaves “as if” it understands (i.e., by answering the questions), 

then it does understand. 

So it’s not even a question of behaving as if it understands. If the system answers the questions, then it does understand. That’s because if it didn’t understand, it couldn’t answer the questions!

Searle is of course aware of this behaviourist (or at least quasi-behaviourist) position. Basically, the problem of computer minds replicates the problem of human “other minds” (as in the Problem of Other Minds). As Searle himself puts it:

“‘How do you know that other people understand Chinese or anything else? Only by their behaviour. Now the computer can pass the behavioural tests as well as they can (in principle), so if you are going to attribute cognition to other people, you must in principle also attribute it to computers.’”

As I said, this raises all of Searle’s questions about true understanding — or, in his terms, meaning, intentionality and reference. To put Searle’s point in very basic terms: the system could answer the questions without understanding the questions. Though since Kurzweil is arguing that the very act of answering the questions quite literally constitutes understanding; then, by definition, Searle is wrong. Nothing, according to Kurzweil, is missing from this story.

So forget the man and his rulebook, let’s talk about the CPU and its rulebook (or set of algorithms) instead: 

If the CPU and the rulebook answer the questions, 

then the whole system understands the questions. 

If it’s definitionally the case that answering the questions means understanding the questions, then Kurzweil is correct in his argument against Searle. Nonetheless, Searle knows that this is the argument and he’s argued against it for decades. There’s something left out of (or wrong about) Kurzweil’s position. So what’s wrong with it?

Kurzweil himself is aware — if in a rudimentary form — of what Searle will say in response. Writing of Searle’s position, Kurzweil says that

“he states that Watson is only manipulating symbols and does not understand the meaning of those symbols”. 

It does indeed seem obviously the case that this is just an example of “manipulating symbols” and not one of true understanding. Having said that, that obviousness (or acquired obviously) is probably largely a result of reading Searle and other philosophers on this subject. If you have read more workers in artificial intelligence than philosophers on this subject, then it may seem to you that what Kurzweil argues is obviously the case.

So let’s forget intuition or obviousness.

Does a thermometer understand heat because it reacts to it in the same way each time? What I mean by this is that a thermometer is given a “question” (heat) and provides an “answer” (the rising or falling mercury). Sure, this understanding is non-propositional and doesn’t involve words or even symbols. But if Kurzweil himself sees these things in terms of the brain alone (i.e., its physical nature and output — not in terms of meaning or sentences), then why should that matter to him? In other words, if we can judge a computer squarely in terms of its output or behaviour (e.g., answering questions), then can’t we judge the thermometer in the same way? According to Kurzweil, if the computer answers questions then, by definition, it understands. Thus if the thermometer responds in the right way to different levels of heat, then it too understands. Thus sentences and their meanings are no more important to computers than they are to thermometers.