John Searle

Q: Is the Chinese Argument flawed? In Reason and Responsibility, John Searle presents his “Chinese Room Argument” that doubts “Strong A.I.”, or artificial intelligence. “Strong A.I.” is a theory that a computer is as genuine and accurate by virtue of those who programmed it. Essentially, a system that has a mental state, M, and follows a set of programmed rules as if it behaves as M. Searle wishes to prove that a mechanical application of communication rules to a system does not give the machine the ability to understand the language. The Chinese Room Argument states the following: Searle is sitting inside a room, which is known as the Chinese room. From the outside of the room, a Chinese speaker writes Chinese questions onto a piece of paper, and slides them through the door slot. Searle doesn’t know Chinese, and cannot read what is written on the paper. However, Searle has a rulebook that tells him how to respond to each paper in Chinese. When Searle sends the…

conscious, nor can it be proven that she is not. There is a major difference between her and human sociopaths. She is a machine. Therefore, there can’t be an absolute answer to whether she is conscious. David L. Anderson in “What is a Person” says, “It is possible that a machine might be conscious, but at this point, given that we have no clue what it is about humans that make us conscious, we have no idea what we would have to build into an android to make it conscious.” Humanity still does not…

Searle’s Chinese Room Argument was first published in 1980 as an experiment where John Searle attempted to prove certain relationships and differences between artificial intelligence and the human brain. I’m going to argue that the explanations for his argument are inconclusive. John Searle’s Chinese Room argument was an experiment where Searle locked himself in a room and was fed slips of paper under the door in three stages. The first stage is called “a script”. In the first stage John is…

The two most commonly cited criticisms of the turing test are: The Chinese Room criticism and the Blockhead criticism. 2 The Chinese Room argument closely relates to the Turing test. Published by John Searle in 1932, the thought experience describes a situation where Searle is locked in a room and is then passed Chinese characters under the door. Searle does not understand any Chinese, but by manipulating symbols and numerals and matching them with the symbols and numerals he has in the room,…

The mind body problem questions what is the nature of the mind and mental states? How are the mind and the body related? How are mental states related to brain states? Descartes says that there are two kinds of elements in the world, bodies and minds. Descartes believes in interactionism which means minds and bodies intermingle with one another. The Chinese Room Argument was introduced by philosopher John Searle. In this experiment He explains an encounter that a human has with a computer that…

The argument in John Searle’s famous “Chinese room” experiment is that understanding or intelligence in general is not the same as teaching a computer symbols, recognition of them, or computations. In this experiment a man is instructed to translate a paper with squiggles by an answer key, through “if, then” statements such as if “squiggle” then “squiggle”. These squiggles are actually Chinese letters. But it is clear that the man does not understand or can even write Chinese, he is just…

1 Compare and contrast the views of John Searle and Rene Descartes on dualism. Dualism claims that all real objects are either physical or nonphysical. Rene Descartes maintains that reality is composed of two substances: mind and body. Mind is immaterial essence and body in material essence. All our thoughts and feelings are immaterial and exist in our mind, while our body exists in material space. He believed that they interact with each other at some point in the body. On the other hand,…

used in the realm of animals as well. In math class the teacher may instruct her students to “compute 5+5=x” and the students, without the aid of technology, may mentally compute the equation. Thinking however is a term that, at the moment, is used strictly when referring to animals, mainly humans. Computing within computers is considered to only contain the principle of syntax as opposed to thinking which contains both syntax and semantics. I believe, along with Searle, that semantics is…

animal cognition, it is my conclusion that non-human animals are in fact capable of thought. Although humans certainly display a superior cognitive ability, I believe the cognition of animals is not of an entirely different type, and that whatever difference remains is simply one of degree. While Davidson and Descartes tend to argue that language is a necessary component for rational creatures, Hobbes and Searle give non-human creatures more “cognitive credit,” citing their ability perceive, and…

Searle argues that strong artificial intelligence, where a programmed computer would exhibit genuine mental properties and understanding, is impossible to create. Searle proposes the Chinese Room Thought experiment where basically Searle (who understands no Chinese) is locked in a room with an instruction book (written in English). Searle receives a paper with Chinese written on it that is incomprehensible to him. But by following the instructions in the book, he is able to draw Chinese back on…