The Chinese Room on Language
In my first blog post, I posted about how Polish people in Britain may be conversant in English but do not really understand it. The language antagonises them in certain ways. I believe this is why there is an issue with multiculturalism. Understanding the issue is what will allow us to work towards resolutions.
I am going to use the simple Chinese room problem here to explain the idea.
This idea was proposed by John Searle in his paper, “Minds, Brains, and Programs”, published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 1980. His idea was around the basis of AI and why AI cannot give a computer the ability to understand or have consciousness. It might then seem a little bit out to apply this to people. Let us have a look at the theory first.
Searle’s thought experiment begins with a simple premise. This hypothetical premise takes the presumption that a computer scientist has created a computer that behaves as if it understands Chinese. We give the computer a problem in Chinese and the computers take the Chinese words as inputs, they are simple symbols to the computer. It will then give us an output that also comprises of Chinese characters, these symbols are arranged grammatically correct. The computer completes this programme well enough to pass a Turing test. The people questioning it have no idea it is a computer and believe it to be a Chinese person.
The question then is does the computer understand Chinese?
We would probably argue no as it is following a programme, a very well written programme but ultimately it not thinking independently. This is what I feel is happening when people learn a different language.
They are taking a set of symbols and arranging it through a programme and bringing forward another set of symbols.
I have stated already that one of my premises is that
Language is defined by culture
We understand language via all the social cues that are around as we go up. This develops our sense of language. We develop colloquialisms, we have thick concepts, and we have fighting words that all fit in and shape our world. This happens unconsciously. We do not realise that this is happening.
When we learn a new language it has areas that we do not understand. We can all see a cat, bir pişik, un chat, or یک گربه. A cat is a symbol. It is a picture. We do not need a deep understanding of a language to know a cat is un chat. We would argue that a computer being shown a picture of a cat and telling us that it is a cat is not a deep powerful version of AI. We can also safely argue that it does not show a good understanding of language. It shows an acknowledgment of symbols.
Now maybe if we include the word cat in a grammatically correct sentence does that show understanding?
“The black cat is walking across the unlit road.”
This sentence gives us a lot of information. It allows us to visualise the idea. We might even feel that the cat is in danger of being hit by a car, due to cues within the sentence even though they are not set out for us to see. Some people may feel this shows more understanding, it certainly would shape up better in high school study of a foreign language than just saying cat.
Again though it is all symbols arranged in a programmable order. It would appear as if a person said it and not a computer. It again does not show a complete understanding of a language.
Look at the people around you, do they speak with a dialect and with colloquialisms? This is because your language is imbued with your local culture, your local religion, and in some cases a misunderstanding of the formal language of the area.
If I took someone from the East End of London and someone from the East End of Glasgow. In a conversation, there will be points that neither understands although both will be speaking English. No one would disagree that they are speaking English but why then is there a disconnect?
It is because local conditions have shaped their use of language. They have been programmed slightly differently. The inputs are the same, the programme varies the outputs.
This is why immigrant communities stay within themselves even if they seem to be fully conversant in the new countries language. They have grasped the fundamental symbols but their programming is slightly different. They, therefore, miss out on what the local population understands, there is an antagonism between the language they learned and its cultural significance and the new language and its own set of cultural rules. They have therefore been cast adrift, even with language skills they need cultural help to be able to understand the language.
In order for them to truly understand a new language, they need to bury themselves in the local culture, especially if the new local culture is at odds with the culture from where they originated.
Please feel free to comment below telling me how wrong I am.
Originally published at ethicallynull.wordpress.com on October 25, 2017.
