A Critique Of The Chinese Room Argument - 2056 Words.
John Searle's Chinese Room Argument Essay - John Searle's Chinese Room Argument The purpose of this paper is to present John Searle’s Chinese room argument in which it challenges the notions of the computational paradigm, specifically the ability of intentionality. Then I will outline two of the commentaries following, the first by Bruce Bridgeman, which is in opposition to Searle and uses.
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Where the Robot Reply parts company with Searle is in its rejection of Searle's view that the Chinese room argument succeeds in showing that ALL digital computers are equally susceptible to Searle's argument. Those who offer the Robot Reply believe that the right kind of digital computer -- one that controls a sufficiently complex robot -- would indeed be intelligent and understand a language.
The following reply to the Chinese Room argument came to my mind recently: The whole activity of manipulating symbols described in CR is understanding in the usual sense of the word. My understanding of, say, English is nothing more than manipulating symbols in my mind. The only (extremely crucial) difference is that the manipulation process in my brain happens instantaneously, effortlessly.
John Searle’s Chinese room argument is a staple of popular philosophy and, in particular, the philosophy of artificial intelligence. Laid out in his seminal paper Minds, Brains, and Programs it, at least at first glance, appears to sum up our intuitive apprehensions in ascribing the seemingly rich qualia present in our own human experience to “mere symbol manipulators” as Searle puts it.
Suppose I am locked in a room with a large book of Chinese writing. Suppose I know no Chinese, written or spoken, and I can't even reliably recognize it (as opposed to Japanese or bogus characters). Suppose I have another book of Chinese writing together with a set of rules for correlating the first book's entries with the second book's. Suppose these rules are in English (which I do.
The Chinese Room The argument (a reductio argument) Suppose there is a program sufficient to produce understanding of Chinese. A person in the Chinese room can in principle carry out this program. But such a person would not understand Chinese. So no program is by itself sufficient to produce understanding of Chinese. Churchland’s reply The program cannot be carried out in the Chinese room.