>Searle glosses the Chinese Room argument as follows:
>
>1. Computers programs have syntactic but not semantic
>content;
>2. Minds have semantic content;
>3. Therefore computer programs are not minds.
>
>But there's something weird about Searle -- because in
>spite of all his attacks on cognitive science,
>functionalism, et cetera, the position he holds is a
>materialist one:
>
><quote mongering>
>Let us now return to our 'dilemma'. The first horn
>claims that if we think of the relation between the
>mental and the physical as causal we are left with a
>mysterious notion of causation. I have argued that
>this is not so. It only seems so if we think of
>mental and physical naming two ontological categories,
>two mutually exclusive classes of things, a mental
>world and a physical world. But if we think of
>ourselves as living in one world which contains mental
>things in the sense in which it contains liquid things
>and solid things then there are no metaphysical
>obstacles to a causal account of such things. My
>beliefs and desires, my thirsts and visual
>experiences, are real causal features of my brain, as
>much as the solidity of the table I work at and the
>liquidity of the water I drink are causal features of
>tables and water. (Searle, _Intentionality_, p.271)
>
I was sceptical when I first ran across Searle's argument that the brain contains mental features such as language. Where in the world do we find language? When you speak, there are no words coming out of your mouth, only soundwaves. When you hear, there are no words in your ear, only drumbeats. No words in the brain, just electrochemical impulses. Searle's solution is that mentality is an emergent property of matter which is exhibited only in the brain. But even if the brain has an emergent property akin to solidness or liquidness, it would still consist of matter, and matter cannot have properties like "symbol" or "reference." How could a piece of matter symbolize something else? The symbol resides only in the mind that interprets the matter, not in the matter itself.
What's really odd about Searle is that he regards the brain as "an organic machine." But if it's just a kind of machine, then its emergent property could be exploited by any kind of machine, such as a computer. As Norbert Wiener pointed out years ago, there is quite a stunning similarity between computers and brains, namely, the negative feedback loop. The genius of cybernetics is that when a decision is made (input), the effects of this decision (output) are fed back to the decision-maker, which is then able to make adjustments based on how closely results conform to expectations. This self-regulation is what makes computers seem "intelligent." We know the brain also engages in negative feedback, but we can't actually find it. Brain "circuitry" is totally inadequate to the task of feeding outputs back to inputs. In fact, it doesn't even necessarily connect one stage in the circuit-- such as language recognition-- to the next stage, such as language production. (This is the so-called "binding problem.") Thus Searle's emergent property of the brain would have to account for the missing steps in its circuitry, including its feedback. It's as if the solidity of a table provided feedback by which the underlying atoms could make adjustments to improve the quality of the table.
It's the mind that provides the feedback loop by which the brain becomes a self-regulating organ. So, where is it? Why can't we find this "emergent property" of the brain? What I'm suggesting is that we stop trying to understand the mind in terms of the brain and start taking it on its own terms. What does the mind do? Well, it gives us two things-- memory and volition-- and their combination is what gives us our feedback loop. If you throw a baseball over someone's head, then you try to throw it lower next time, and you make your adjustment based on your memory. In other words, while the feedback circuit of a computer is spatial, in the brain-mind it's *temporal.* The mind is not merely an emergent property of the brain. It *is* the brain, only extended over time instead of space. It brings the past into the present. It retains the past (memory) yet it also stays with the current of time and influences the brain (volition) based on the brain's own past activities (feedback).
The brain is the mind in the present, while the mind is the brain over time. Neither one can be reduced to the other. Neither one can be an emergent property of the other. They are simply different perspectives on the same thing.
Ted