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Searle and the Chinese Room Argument

            John Searle is an American philosopher who is best known for his thought experiment on the Chinese Room Argument. This argument is used to show that computers cannot process what they comprehend and that what computers do does not explain human understanding. The question of "Do computers have the ability to think?" is a very conflicting argument that causes a lot of debate between philosophers in the study of Artificial Intelligence-a belief that machines can imitate human performance- and philosophers in the Study of Mind, who study the correlation between the mind and the physical world. Searle concludes that a computer cannot simply understand a language just by applying a computer program to it and that in order for it to fully comprehend the language the computer needs to identify syntax and semantics.
             The way in which the Chinese Room example works is that suppose that a person who does not understand or speak Chinese at all is told to sit in a room with an input slot and an output slot. A person that understands Chinese slips Chinese characters through the slot hoping for a response in return. The person sitting in the Chinese room is given a set of formal rules for using the Chinese symbols; however, the rules do not tell him what the words mean, they just simply indicate what they should write back in response to the letters he has received through the input slot. These rules entail grammatically correct information to the receiver even though the person in the room has not idea what they are writing out; a similar-or same- concept that a robot has. The rules only mention the shape and order the characters should be presented-their syntax. This is where Searle argues the idea of semantics as one cannot come to the understanding of the symbols just by copying them according to specific rules concerning syntax. To all external presences, though, you perform just like you understand Chinese.


Essays Related to Searle and the Chinese Room Argument

1. The Concept of Computer Consciousness

... is only a simulation, and not the same as actual living behavior. Of course, this argument can be conducted back and forth without ending, simply because it is an argument of semantics. However, that does not mean that the argument itself is not a valid one. Semantics, in fact, is one of the key characteristics of the Chinese Room Argument. The Chinese Room Argument is an analogy created by John Searle. Searle made the argument in rejection of the Strong AI thesis, which ... states that a computer/robot that passes the Turing Test should be thereby assumed to be a conscious thinker. His...

  • Word Count: 1527
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

2. Watson Doesn't Know It Won by John Searle

... computational power and ingenious program " (215). But that is where most of the praise ends. It is his belief that the operations of Watson or any computer should never be compared to thinking or understanding akin to that involved in the human brain. Citing an argument he raised in the 1980's, he compares the "thinking " that IBM claims Watson does to that of a man in a room processing Chinese symbols ... , it just won't ever be really thinking or understanding. His points are well presented and easy to understand. I can follow his train of thought and feel most would be hard pressed t...

  • Word Count: 912
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

3. Can Machines Think?

... be said to be answering the questions. In fact, from the point of view of someone standing outside the room, he would be correctly answering the questions, and thus would appear to be conversant in Chinese. This of course is not the case, as Searle would have no knowledge of what the story was about, and what the questions were asking - he would not be understanding the story. This argument is an attempt to ... demonstrate that although a computer program appears to be understanding a story, it is merely obeying simple instructions, and ... ...

  • Word Count: 1323
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Has Bibliography

4. Turing Test

... order to keep the test setting simple and universal (to explicitly test the linguistical capability of some machine), the conversation is usually limited to a text-only channel. [wikipedia] John Searle is currently Mills Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is noted for contributions in the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and consciousness, and on the characteristics of socially constructed versus physical realities. The Chinese room argument is a thought experiment ... , which he designed in 1980, to discredit the stronger claims made by Stron...

  • Word Count: 779
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

5. Measuring Artificial Intelligence

... , it can help to make more people educated. Better ways of defining Artificial Intelligence. Two of the very famous, yet very contradictory tests developed in measuring the intelligence of machines are "the Turing test" developed by Alan Turing and "the Chinese Room Argument" developed by John R Searle. Both of these tests have very thoughtful process of measuring machines intelligence but they underestimate machine's unique strengths ... . How should we measure artificial intelligence so that we can value our machines? The most common problem among people who ... ...

  • Word Count: 2656
  • Approx Pages: 11
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

6. Humanoid Robots

... that function similarly to our nerves and neural networks. For that reason, the machine can perform similarly to humans in thought, understanding and reason. Searle's reply to my argument, that consciousness lies within a beings understanding and awareness of self, would lend itself to his Chinese Room example. This example refers to a scenario where a man is locked in a room and given a large batch of Chinese writings. The man is also given a set of ... instructions in English on relating the Chinese symbols to another set of symbols, along ... ...

  • Word Count: 1573
  • Approx Pages: 6

7. Humanoid Robots

... that function similarly to our nerves and neural networks. For that reason, the machine can perform similarly to humans in thought, understanding and reason. Searle's reply to my argument, that consciousness lies within a beings understanding and awareness of self, would lend itself to his Chinese Room example. This example refers to a scenario where a man is locked in a room and given a large batch of Chinese writings. The man is also given a set of ... instructions in English on relating the Chinese symbols to another set of symbols, along ... ...

  • Word Count: 1573
  • Approx Pages: 6

8. Artificial Intelligence

... phrases that are phonetically very similar, even though they have very little meaning in common. The dilemma for computers would not be one for humans with their natural ability to comprehend and conclude the two differences and make the correct assumption of the two. In addition to the argument for understanding language, we have numerous other problems that machines face when mimicking humans. Movement ... such as walking, running, sitting, standing, jumping and skipping are all complex movements for a machine to copy. Human beings ... further explain this analysis of the constraints ...

  • Word Count: 2048
  • Approx Pages: 8
  • Grade Level: High School

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