Consciousness is a difficult problem to grapple with, mainly due to its inherently subjective nature. We don’t yet understand the brain well enough to say much about how it does anything, let alone to describe how it gives rise to (or doesn’t give rise to) conscious experience. Due to this limitation, we’re currently reliant on …
A Different Perspective on Searle’s Chinese Room Read More »
I recently shared my last post on the Chinese room to Reddit, which led to some productive discussions in the comments. I thought it may be helpful to share some excerpts from one of those threads here, as it provides a slightly different way of thinking about the issue. Hope you find this discourse interesting …
The Chinese Room Argument is a thought experiment designed by John Searle to show why computers are not capable of consciousness or intentionality. For those unfamiliar, Searle’s concise version of the argument goes: “Imagine a native English speaker who knows no Chinese locked in a room full of boxes of Chinese symbols (a data base) …