On 26 March 2013 21:35, Gordon Joly <gordon.j...@pobox.com> wrote: > > Indeed.... > > > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
I've always considered that a pretty stupid thought experiment. The beauty of language is that it allows you to communicate new ideas by combining known ones. The instruction book in the room would need to be practically infinite. If you have a book that big, then I'm happy to fudge the definition of "understand" such that the book "understands" the language - the definition won't be any less useful for it. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
