[Wittrs] Do Computers "Learn?"

[Sean Wilson]

... discussion with Eray over on Serious Philosophy.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Phil-Sci-Mind/

At issue is whether Computers "learn." Eray took issue with something in these slides, about computers, mathematics and rule following:

http://ludwig.squarespace.com/lecture-topics/2012/5/24/11-rule-following-psychology-mathematics.html

 ------------------------------ 
Eray writes: 

"Well about the difference between computer and human, computers can also learn anything that humans can learn so the difference there is vastly
exaggerated :)
IOW, computers too can learn mathematical languages, formalisms, rules,
etc. It's called "machine learning". 

-----------------------------
My response: 

... if they do "learn," it's only in a sense of speaking.

This is the point that's never understood. There is no genuine philosophic issue in any of these discussions. There is only the uniforms that people wear. 

The only issues should be informational. If there are things that certain kinds of computers are doing that I do not know about, then I would need to understand that. And once both agree on what occurs in the world, how we speak about it is of no concern.

1. The computer learns X
2. Bob learnt Spanish
3. My dog learned his name
4. My cells have learned to attack the bacteria.

In each of these, the only point is to know what the expressions are doing when they are voiced. What is happening, empirically (factually), in the world. It does no good to dispute anything else.  

Regards and thanks.

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=596860
Wittgenstein Discussion: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html    

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