Vercules wrote:
The idea of the brain as an information processor—a machine manipulating blips of energy according to fathomable rules—has come to dominate neuroscience. However, one enemy of the brain-as-computer metaphor is John R. Searle, a philosopher who argues that since computers simply follow algorithms, they cannot deal with important aspects of human thought such as meaning and content. Computers are syntactic, rather than semantic, creatures. People, on the other hand, understand meaning because they have something Searle obscurely calls the causal powers of the brain.
Yet how would a brain work if not by reducing what it learns about the world to information—some kind of code that can be transmitted from neuron to neuron? What else could meaning and content be? If the code can be cracked, a computer should be able to simulate it, at least in principle. But even if a computer could simulate the workings of the mind, Searle would claim that the machine would not really be thinking; it would just be acting as if it were. His argument proceeds thus: if a computer were used to simulate a stomach, with the stomach's churnings faithfully reproduced on a video screen, the machine would not be digesting real food. It would just be blindly manipulating the symbols that generate the visual display.
Suppose, though, that a stomach were simulated using plastic tubes, a motor to do the churning, a supply of digestive juices, and a timing mechanism. If food went in one end of the device, what came out the other end would surely be digested food. Brains, unlike stomachs, are information processors, and if one information processor were made to simulate another information processor, it is hard to see how one and not the other could be said to think. Simulated thoughts and real thoughts are made of the same element: information. The representations of the world that humans carry around in their heads are already simulations. To accept Searle's argument, one would have to deny the most fundamental notion in psychology and neuroscience: that brains work by processing information.
1) The main purpose of the passage is to
A) propose an experiment
B) analyze a function
C) refute an argument
D) explain a contradiction
E) simulate a process
Passage: Searle
Question: Main Idea
The Simple StoryMost neuroscientists think of the brain as an information processor. The philosopher John Searle disagrees with this view, arguing that people can understand meaning and content, while computers cannot. The author, however, disagrees with Searle. She presents one of Searle’s arguments, related to simulated digestion, and refutes it. She then concludes that Searle’s argument is incompatible with a fundamental notion in psychology and neuroscience: that brains work by processing information.
Sample Passage MapHere is one way to map this passage. (Note: abbreviate as desired!)
P1:
brain = info processor
Searle: computers can’t really think
Searle: human brain has ‘causal powers’
P2:
Author: brain = info processor
Searle: computer stomach not really digesting
→ computer brain not really thinking
P3:
Author: simulated stomach COULD really digest
Computer is the same, but with info
So: simulated thought = thought
Step 1: Identify the QuestionThe words main purpose in the question stem indicate that this is a
Primary Purpose question.
Step 2: Find the SupportThe support for a Primary Purpose question is found in the main point(s) of the passage as a whole, not in any specific detail. Briefly review your passage map to find the support for this question.
Step 3: Predict an AnswerThe majority of the passage is spent
refuting Searle’s argument. The author finally concludes that accepting Searle’s argument would mean denying the most fundamental notion in psychology and neuroscience. The primary purpose of this passage is
to argue against Searle’s views.
Step 4: Eliminate and Find a Match(A) The passage does propose an experiment (the simulated stomach), but it only does so in order to counter one of Searle’s arguments. The broader purpose, therefore, is to refute Searle’s views about human thought.
(B) The function mentioned here is presumably the information-processing function of the human brain. The passage doesn’t solely present its own analysis, however. Instead, it analyzes this function in order to refute Searle’s analysis.
(C) CORRECT. The passage first introduces, then refutes, Searle’s argument.
(D) The passage does not describe any of its ideas as a contradiction.
(E) The topic of the passage is, in part, the simulation of physical processes (digestion and thinking). However, the passage itself does not simulate these processes. Instead, it discusses some hypothetical simulations (without performing them), and disagrees with Searle’s view on what these simulations would imply.