Talk:Chinese room

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[edit] The Rulebook

The rulebook was written by an intelligent human that understood Chinese. That intelligent being is no longer part of the sytem. If the system understood chinese then it would be able to add new pages to the rulebook. It can't. Ergo, the system doesn't understand Chinese.

Rulebook =represents= Computer Program. It doesn't take any intelligence or understanding to run a computer program, but it does take a great deal of intelligent thought to write a meaningful program.

So, where's the argument? The "system" only understands Chinese if you include the human that wrote the rulebook in the "system".

Yes, that's certainly the intuition Searle wants you to have, but it's also wrong. The Chinese speaker didn't just write some handy book that explained Chinese, they recorded everything about their behavior into this "book". That's why a purely mechanical obedience of the rules leads to behavior identical to the Chinese author.
What misleads is that, with a regular book, the author is indeed outside of the system, but it's just not the case with this extreme hypothetical example. Your intuition, which works fine in real cases, has failed you in this one. Alienus 01:23, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think you make a clear point. The fact that you put book in quotes ("book"). It is a book. Just like any other book. Of course it isn't a book explaining Chinese. Explaination implies understanding. This is a rule book (also known as a computer program). The book could never be complete. That's the argument. If you really think that this is a complete set of rules then that's your opinion. That needs to be proven. If you could prove that, then maybe we'd be on the way to proving that the system was intelligent. The system makes no allowances for adding pages to the book, so it's safe to define an intelligence outside the system that is required to add a new page to the book. The system can't add algorithms to the computer program. Oops, I mean can't add rules to the book.
Yes, just like any other book, except that it's so huge as to be able to specify what symbols to manipulate so as to duplicate all the behavior of a (Chinese) person. Size does matter, and the incredible magnititude of this book distorts our intuitions.
As you said, the book doesn't explain Chinese, just tell us how to act so as to exactly immitate a person who speaks Chinese. I suppose that, in principle, the book could be analyzed to determine how Chinese is spoken, as well as to determine any other fact about the virtual person inside it. In practice, it's hard enough to just follow the instructions accurately.
As for the issue of adding to it, that would be a weakness in Searle's analogy. It could easily be repaired by giving the book many empty pages, such that there are instructions on how to fill them in response to input. This would give the book a memory and shrink it to more imaginable size. Alternately, we could say, as Searle did, that the book is really, really huge, so that it contains all possible responses to all possible inputs, including those that depend on memory.
Now, I'm not the one saying there could be a complete set of fixed rules for all occasions. That's what Searle is requiring for his thought experiment. His point, though, is that, even with such a book, the person inside the room who's following the rules in that book does not know Chinese.
In fact, I agree: that person doesn't know Chinese, anymore than a processor executing those rules would. However, the virtual person stored in the book and instantiated through the room and its motor-fingered occupant, does know the language quite well.
In principle, the behavior of any person, Chinese or otherwise, could be duplicated by a Turing machine. If it were, that machine as a whole (as opposed to the processor, the book, or any other specific component of it) would be experiencing consciousness. As it stands, proponents of hard AI say that such a machine already exists, and can be found in your skull. Alienus 23:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually the system would be able to add new pages to the rulebook, in the sense that the system could be, for exanple, taught English. Rich Farmbrough 10:08 22 June 2006 (GMT).
There is no need to add anything to the rulebook, as the rulebook must be infinite: finite lookup tables aren't Turing complete. The argument is simply that you can simulate a Chinese speaker by taking as input a string of all questions that have been asked from the computer up to that point, look up the answer by using that string as an index from an infinite table that gives the corresponding answer acceptable to a Chinese speaker, and then because the person inside the computer who's doing the lookup doesn't understand Chinese the computer doesn't either. The last step is a matter of controversy.
Surely the ability to learn is fundamental to intelligence and understanding. You mention that the rulebook has to be infinite. So, you're not just talking about a machine that understands Chinese, it would be able to tell me how to do cold fusion in my kitchen. An infinite rulebook and not having the ability to learn are features of an intelligent Chinese room.
Note that if you don't use a Turing machine but a finite computer as the model instead, the lookup table would still have to be mind-bogglingly huge (which isn't any better for intuition than countable infinities), as the indices would still be strings that contain all the input that has ever been given to the computer, and the table would have to contain entries for all possible indices. The table would be finite assuming finite lifetime for the universe and a maximum possible rate for entering input, but there isn't enough matter in the universe to store such a table even for short input strings. There still isn't any need to add to the lookup table, as "all the questions the human asks are responded to appropriately" , which won't happen if there's something missing from the table. Coffee2theorems 15:58, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Another note: In my experience it is a widely held belief that the ability to predict (in this case, predict what is an acceptable answer to a Chinese speaker; this also counters any argument of compressing the lookup table to make the scheme more plausible, as compression depends on predictive ability) constitutes understanding. E.g. in The Crackpot Index John Baez gives "arguing that while a current well-established theory predicts phenomena correctly, it doesn't explain "why" they occur, or fails to provide a "mechanism"" as one indicator of a crackpot (ie. does not invalidate an argument, but makes it highly dubious). Beyond a certain point, it does not make much sense to question whether you really, truly understand something, as if for all intents and purposes you act as if you did, it makes no difference anyway. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... Coffee2theorems 17:13, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Can I add my 2 cents? The thing is always what exactly are we trying to show or prove. The person in the room can surely react in a natural chineese manner to the input in chineese, which might be good enough. Does this mean that he understands Chineese? Of course not. But being a human being, if he stays in the room long enough, he will eventually get to understand Chinese. Supposingly a computer could also do that. Would it be meaningful and useful? Let's say that from one point on, the person in the room understands Chineese to the degree that he/she can converse with him/herself. So the input is self provided. The conversation will be of course limited to the subset of input provided by the outside chinese and its overlap with the rulebook. Is this understanding meaningful? If the person in the room is immortal, and after a thousand years another Chinese drops by, neither the rulebook or the past knowledge of chinese will help the person in the room interact with the new Chinese. The rulebook was written by someone who understood the collective state of the Chineese language in a particular point in time and in a particular physical and social environment. And it is meaningful only at that time. Dpser 13:22, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] older stuff

OK, I'll bite... Since Hofstadter's reply was the one Searle called the Systems reply and since you edited it out for no apparent reason, I'll put it and the other responses here and then we'll talk. My paper was actually on the whole drawn out debate between Searle & H/D. The next part of my original paper was on Hofstader's reply, but I left that out, since it has little bearing on the Chinese Room article. --Eventi
I was only cleaning up the language of this article--if I removed something it was probably a mistake (something like a cut with intention to paste at another location, which was forgotten). Thanks for putting it back. I agree that responses to Searle ought to go into other article(s). I'll see if I can come up with a few. I admit that my totally unsupported comment is just that--it's on a Talk page, after all--and I may well choose to back it up if I can find some time, but the impression I get from those in the AI field I know well--Minksy, Kurzweil, and others with whom I have conversed--is that no one takes Searle seriously except Searle. --LDC

I think the essay was well written, though a little out of date. It's far from neutral point of view, which would be the hardest part to fix. -LC

Thanks... What do you think is out of date? --Eventi

[edit] Replies to the Chinese Room

The first of the six replies is called the "Systems Response", coming from Berkeley University.

However, Searle forgets here that his role is this scheme is relegated to the role of a neuron in a human brain, or a set of neurons. One could argue that neurons, or other human cognitive subsystems composed of many neurons that mindlessly execute rules, functioning as part of the whole, are unaware in the sense that the whole, the totality of all subsystems is aware. What is awareness anyway, why is yours special over the more limited "awareness" of your subsystems, or, as a better example, the awareness of a cat. Also, one of the important qualities of being able to answer questions is being able to adapt and learn about the world at large, and the set of rules he'd be executing would have to accomodate in the background such functions of learning, or self-revision of the rules, including processing observations coming through the senses about the external world, logically filtering them through the existing worldview of the given consciousness to only accept consistent facts, or slightly modify the worldview to accomodate new facts that fit and are demanded by more important consistency requirements - such as paradoxes about the constant speed measurements of light, required by the more important rule that experiment and observation is king over ad-hoc invented world-view beliefs. The chinese language would simply be a mold capable of accepting concepts, a tool for manipulating the sensory data and to constantly revise it, to dream about the world chinese (or "human" words that happen to have chinese symbols) and toss out the garbage while committing new and important finding to long term memory. Once he has a worldview, a coherent outlook about the world around him where everything falls neatly into place, and there are very few cracks called paradoxes that are such an important source of humor and fun, then he would be able to answer questions, and without such qualities I doubt he'd ever be able to pass the Turing test, because he couldn't answer any questions. By the way, though I don't know what kind of music it will like, I predict that that the first artificially intelligent computer will have quite a good sense of humor. The scary part is the cat example, if we think we are more aware and conscious than cats are, then there is most likely even more awareness possible than we are capable of. Do we want to find out? Is it inevitable? 4.159.92.189 03:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC) Sillybilly 20:22, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Searle first points out that this reply is actually inconsistent with the strong AI belief that one does not have to know how the brain works to know how the mind works, since the mind is a program that runs on the brain?s hardware. "On the assumption of strong AI, the mind is to the brain as the program is to the hardware, and thus we can understand the mind without doing neurophysiology (363)".

Searle foresees objections to his water pipe computer, namely the systems response, that it is the conjunction of the operator and the pipes that understand. Again he answers that in principle, the operator could internalize the system as before, and there would still be no understanding. Searle says that this is because the system simulates the wrong things about the brain. Only the formal description of the brain, and not its ability to produce "intentional states".

Another reply which comes takes a different tack from the others, and really asks a different question. It's the "Other Minds" reply. How does anyone know that other people understand Chinese?

Cole (1991, 1994) develops the reply most extensively and argues as follows: Searle's argument presupposes, and requires, that the agent of understanding be the computer itself or, in the Chinese Room parallel, the person in the room. Searle's failure to understand Chinese in the room does not show that there is no understanding being created. Cole argues that the mental traits that constitute John Searle, his beliefs and desires, memories and personality traits — are all irrelevant and causally inert in producing the answers to the Chinese questions. If understanding of Chinese were created by running the program, the mind understanding the Chinese would not be the computer, nor, in the Chinese Room, would the person understanding Chinese be the room operator. The person understanding the Chinese would be a distinct person from the room operator. The reason is that the personality and memories of the Chinese understanding person would not be John Searle's personality and memories. The personality and memories, beliefs and desires, of the agent understanding Chinese would all depend on the programming, and the structure of the enormous database that it will have to draw upon in order to pass the Turing Test — it would not be John Searle's personality, memories, beliefs or desires. So if the activity in the room creates any understanding, it would not be John Searle's understanding. We can say that a virtual person who understands Chinese would be created by running the program.

In its essence, this is just like a computer program which has an input, it computes something and finally splits an output. Suppose further that the rulebook is such that people outside this room can discuss with you in Chinese. For example, they send you a question 'how are you' and you, following the rulebook, would give a meaningful answer. So far, the computer program simulates human being which understands Chinese.

One can even ask 'do you understand Chinese?' from the room and it can answer 'yes, of course' despite of the fact that you, inside the room, would not understand a word of what is going on. You are just following rules, not understanding Chinese

Why aren't the criticisms a larger part of the article? I think they'd go better in this article than on their own -- "criticism of the Chinese Room" doesn't stand independently. No one brings up the opposition to the Chinese Room except when presented with the Chinese Room argument. Also, it's an important part of the presentation of the argument to note that not many people take the experiment seriously for these reasons (unless I'm mistaken...). I wouldn't support breaking the section off unless the main article got too long -- which seems unlikely. Is anyone putting this material in somewhere/are there significant objections to its insertion (duly NPOVed, etc.)? Mindspillage 14:47, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Arguably, there are people who, while not taking the thoight experiment itself seriously, do take its suggested results very seriously. Alienus 23:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

What I'm not sure about, and which I'll ask Searle or look up information on the web, is whether what Searle is concerned about is paralel to consciousness, or what is called the experience of qualia. Hopefully, this would be easier to get agreement from AI scientists about: that the Chinese room system, or a series of pipes, whatever, wouldn't have consciousness like people do. AI theorists have to either propose a machine can have what we term consciousness, or that there is a mind-body dualism where the mind is either dispensible or epiphenomenal. What I guess Searle also wants to forward in addition to this, is that the understanding and Intentionality of the human mind is unable to be explained without consciousness, and can't be emulated/simulated without it. Aside from Searle's argument, this seems intuitive: because, if it wasn't necessary, why would we have it? Of course, we wouldn't experience existence if we didn't have it, but thats not the point. That it exists, and we exist, as being aware, suggests that its necessary to thought. I should note that I have other concerns about consciousness; one is with epiphenomenalism and Wittgenstein's characterization of it (which I assume Searle rejects)--my other is substantially broader--I think that the issue of conscioussness (how are we conscious) and the issue of existence (why does anything exist at all) have to be the same issue, and can't be separated and ultimately we have to look at ontology. But I wont get into that here. Brianshapiro

I'm pretty sure Searle is critiquing functionalisms explanation of consciousness, not qualia. Why would you get agreement from functionalists? This is their hypothesis, that consciousness is not in principle human-specific. --snoyes 05:27, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Searle is definitely supporting the notion of qualia as raw feels independent of behavior. A key point of the argument is that the room behaves as if it were a person but (ex hypothesi) lacks qualia. Alienus 23:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] the extreme bogosity reply

I think that the replies section needs to contain a subsection that conveys the POV that the Chinese Room argument is not valid. This view is popular enough and important enough to warrant inclusion. One verifiable source is Russel and Norvig's AI text.

A quick reminder of NPOV: "NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a verifiable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each."

I think there are two important points that need to be expressed. The first is that one doesn't need to prove that strong AI is possible in order to refute the Chinese Room argument. The second point is showing where the Chinese Room argument fails. In the thought experiment it is irrelevant whether or not Searle understands Chinese when he is executing the Chinese language program. The proper question would be whether or not the virtual computer running on Searle's brain understands Chinese. Then it becomes clear that because of the substrate independence of computation, the whole exercise of setting up the Chinese Room is pointless. Christocuz 22:03, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I will second that the article seems quite biased towards Searle's point of view. I can think of several objections right off the top of my head that aren't listed (I'm not throwing them in because I believe this would be original research). They seem obvious and valid to me, so it is troubling that they aren't mentioned. David McCabe 21:05, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] casual powers of the brain

From the perspective of somebody who has never heard this thought experiment before and therefore comes in with no pre-conceptions: The article makes sense, except that I am at a loss to what the "casual powers of the brain" are. Perhaps this can be expanded upon, or referenced to another article?

You’re quite right. The only trouble is that the 'causal powers of the brain' are left fairly vague by Searle. I think he says in effect that 'computational power alone is insufficient to produce mind, so what ever causes mind is not computational – so let's just call it that causal part of the mind'. But this is just my POV, so I am loath to include it. Banno 21:10, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, "Causal," not "Casual."  :) I believe the "causal powers of the brain" refers to the particular capacity of a brain to "cause" a mind, through neurological activity. Strong AI wants a computer to be able to create a mind by running software, without needing to simulate the neurological activity of a brain. Such a simulation would presumably require complete understanding of brain function.

[edit] False premise reply

I'm not sure if the false premise argument is present in the historical literature, but it is commonly heard in discussions of the Chinese room. The version I put in the article is not quoted from one particular source, but is a simplified version of the typical argument. Here is one example of the false premise argument from a philosophy discussion site:
"So, how do you decide whether or not a system understands semantics? The Turing Test is one possible test. Indeed, the only way to test for semantics is to test for understanding in general. There is no measurable difference between understanding in general and an understanding of semantics. Syntax is sufficient for semantics. Searle's distinction between purely syntactical systems and semantic systems is illogical. There is no observable difference. If a system passes the Turing Test, it has demonstrated an understanding of semantics."
Given that this argument is not necessarily historic, does it merit inclusion in the article? Kaldari 00:06, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, let's pick at the argument and see how it stands up.
1. the only way to test for semantics is to test for understanding in general
2. There is no measurable difference between understanding in general and an understanding of semantics.
therefore,
3. Syntax is sufficient for semantics.
4. But this contradicts Searle's second premise;
5. So Searle's argument cannot stand.
Is this the correct interpretation? If this is what you are suggesting, then the argument is a reductio. As such one can conclude the either (Syntax is sufficient for semantics)xor(Syntax is insufficient for semantics). Given this, pedantically, the argument does not reach the conclusion it claims.
Remember that the Chinese room is an argument in support of (Syntax is insufficient for semantics). What argument is presented against it? (1), above, appears non-controversial; it is almost tautologous, given that semantics is understanding. (2) above is less clear - I can;t quite see what it might mean. But certainly, (3) simply does not follow from (1) and (2). Syntaxis not even mentioned in (1) and (2), it just appears in (3).
So I;d say no, the argument is neither valid nor cogent, nor does it have a place in the literature. So it should not be included int he article. Banno 22:16, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] second version

Hi Banno, the example I put on the talk page above was just a casual example of someone using the false premise argument as part of their criticism on a discussion board. The example was not especially well written or meant to be presented as a formal argument. Forget points 1 through 5. The false premise argument is actually extremely simple:
In the Chinese Room thought experiment, Searle asserts that purely syntactic rules (without semantics) are theoretically sufficient to pass the Turing test. He doesn't offer any justification for this assertion or its plausability, he just says to "suppose" it happens. The false premise argument simply says that this assertion is wrong, i.e. it is impossible to pass the Turing test with purely syntactic rules as the Turning test is essentially a test for semantics. Thus the conclusions drawn from this experiment are not justified since it is based on a false premise. Here is the relevant original material from Searle:
"Suppose also that after a while I get so good at following the instructions for manipulating the Chinese symbols and the programmers get so good at writing the programs that from the external point of view—that is, from tile point of view of somebody outside the room in which I am locked—my answers to the questions are absolutely indistinguishable from those of native Chinese speakers."
The false premise reply simply rejects this supposition as impossible. This seems like a pretty straight-forward and valid argument. What do you think? Kaldari 22:42, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

From the article:
It would be impossible for the person in the room to pass the Turing test merely with a book of syntactical rules. The rules would have to include semantics in order to actually fool the Chinese-speaking interviewer. If the rules included semantics, the person in the room would actually gain some understanding of Chinese. In other words, the Turing test is essentially a test for semantics.
By definition, if it is in the book of rules, it is syntax, not semantics. The point of the Chinese Room is that the person in the room does not understand the symbols in the way a native speaker would; all they are doing is following the rules. So the idea that the rules include semantics does not make sense. Perhaps Kaldari, you could fill out the argument to overcome this? Banno 22:29, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

You misunderstand the argument. Again, please disregared the example I gave above. It was confusing. The false premise argument does not assert that the rules include semantics. It accepts Searle's scenario that the rules do not include semantics. It merely states that such rules would not be sufficient to pass the Turing test. Kaldari 22:46, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Here is perhaps a better statement of the argument:
Searle's assumption (Banno's emphasis) that it is possible to pass the Turing test using purely syntactical rules (without semantics) is wrong, since the Turing test is essentially a test for semantics. Thus the conclusions that Searle makes are based on a false premise.
Kaldari 23:25, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Here is a better citation of the false premise argument: [1]. The most relevant section is the one titled "Holes in the Chinese Room". Kaldari 23:55, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

But - as it says in the article - Searle does not just assume that syntax is insufficient for semantics - he argues for it by presenting the Chinese Room argument: "Searle holds that the room follows only formal syntactical rules, and does not “understand” Chinese". Neither Searle-in-the-room, nor the room as a whole, understand Chinese; all they do is follow a set of rules for moving symbols around. Remember that the point of the Chinese Room argument is to show that it is not true, as strong AI claims, that "if a machine were to pass a Turing test, then it can be regarded as 'thinking' in the same sense as human thought". Nothing in the room "thinks" like a human; yet the room, by supposition, passes the test. Therefore according to Searle the claim of strong AI is false. Banno

Can you find a better citation? and unidentified Blogger might not be the most reliable source; furthermore, point one and two appear to misunderstand the hypothetical nature of the Chinese Room argument; it is a presupposition of the thought experiment that the room passes the Turing test, so it is pointless to say that it might not. Point three is correct, but misses the point, which is that: ifthe room passes the Turing Test, and because it does not think like a human, it is wrong to suppose that a machine that passes the Turing Test ipso facto thinks like a human. Banno 07:48, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] monkeys and systems

I didn't write that Searle assumes that syntax is insufficient for semantics. I wrote that he assumes it is possible that the room passes the Turing test (without semantics). You write the same thing in your reply: "it is a presupposition of the thought experiment that the room passes the Turing test". And it is certainly not pointless to say that his presupposition is flawed! What if I made the following argument:
I have a monkey that is really smart. Suppose that I make it study day and night for five years so that it passes the SAT. The SAT is supposed to be a test to determine if someone is smart enough to get into college, but of course no matter how smart a monkey is, it would never belong in college. In this case, however, the monkey made it into college because of it's great SAT score. Therefore the SAT is a flawed test.
The problem here is not in my logic, but in the assumtion that if a monkey studies enough it would pass the SAT. Clearly, criticizing the presupposition is critical to debunking this rediculous example. As the writer of the source I cited states: "for such an experiment to have any applicable results, the assumptions have to be possible at least."
As I have said before, please ignore that initial example I posted on the talk page, as it is far too scatterbrained to be a good example of the false premise argument. Kaldari 16:18, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This is fun; we seem to be at cross-purposes here, and although there may be something hiding in your argument, it remains unclear to me what exactly that something is.

Remember that it is the proponents of strong AI that say that a machine that passes the Turing Test can think like a human, not Searle. Searle set the Chinese Room up as an example of a machine that does not think like a human, yet ex hypothesis it passes the test. Now, are you claiming that:

a) it is impossible for any machine, including the Chinese Room, to pass the Turing Test;

b) some machines might pass the Turing Test, but the Chinese Room is not one of them;

c) if the room passes the Turing Test, then ipso facto it is cognisant (it understands semantics)?

If (a), then you are simply denying the efficacy of the Turing Test, and not addressing the issues raised by Searle. If (b), then could you provide reasons for your claim? Banno

But I suspect that you wish to claim (c), which is the most interesting case. But this seems to me to be no more than a repeat of the systems reply. The systems reply says that the room indeed understands Chinese; Searle's reply is that, if it does, it does not do so in the same way that a human does. When Searle-in-the-room is talking about "rice", for instance, there is no understanding, no intentionality associated with "rice" - all that is done is the shuffling of symbols. Banno

So it seems to me that your reply is just a variation on the systems reply, and does not merit its own subheading.Banno 21:36, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Banno, the false premise reply clearly claims B, as I have patiently tried to explain multiple times. If you need reasons to back up claim B, please refer to the citation in the article, particularly the section labeled "1". Basically, any set of purely syntactic rules is going to be limited in what questions it can answer in a meaningful or human-like way. As Chomsky points out, human language is "discreet but infinite". Thus in order for a set of syntactic rules to be able to pass the Turing test, the set of rules would also have to be infinite, which is impossible.
Also, I would appreciate it if you would remove your false characterization of the reply as representing claim C, as that claim is not central to the false premise argument. Thanks. Kaldari 28 June 2005 18:38 (UTC)

[edit] Style & POV

Just a note on style - your versions have asserted that Searle is wrong, rather than that if the reply is accepted, thenSearle is wrong. so for instance, you had: "Thus the conclusions that Searle makes are based on a false premise", which asserts that Searle is wrong: clearly POV. This needs to be couched in a conditional, as in my: "if Searle-in-the-room passes the Turing Test, then ipso facto Searle-in-the-room understands Chinese; and therefore his second assumption is incorrect".

Also, it is a good idea to leave the "dubious" in until this discussion reaches some conclusion, at which point I will remove it. Banno 21:36, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Banno, I wrote the false premise reply in the same style as the other replies. They all very obviously represent POVs. That is why they are called criticisms. If you want to NPOV the false premise reply, why not NPOV the other replies as well? For example, "Houser contends that blah blah blah" rather than "blah, blah, blah"? Adding your own rebuttal is not NPOVing! Kaldari 28 June 2005 18:51 (UTC)
I've used Searle as the main reference, essentially for convenience, since it is Searle that brings the objections together and replies to them. If someone wants to add an additional criticism, then given the contentious nature of the topic, it is reasonable to ask for attribution and for clarity. So, what is it that you see as POV in those replies? One could not object to the POV, as long as it is attributed. Since what you have presented lacks clarity and is not present in the literature, the only reasonable thing to do is to remove it until such time as it can be presented more suitable. Banno June 29, 2005 08:09 (UTC)
The objections themselves are not attributed, they are simply given as if dictated from the gods. Who says "perhaps the person and the room considered together as a system" understands Chinese? Who says that if you place the room inside a robot surely it can be said to "understand what it is doing"? They are written in the same sourceless POV style as I used for the false premise reply. The only reason I wrote it in that style was to be consistant with the other sections. The only sources attributed in the other 2 replies are the replies to the replies: which of course is Searle. If you want to completely NPOV the criticisms section, go ahead, but don't single me out just because I tried to match the style of the other sections! If anything, the false premise section is the most NPOV as it actually gives a small bit of context now: "Another argument, possibly only found outside academic discussion, is:" Kaldari 29 June 2005 17:56 (UTC)

That's why there are links are at the bottom - where they should be. I recommend [Minds, Brains, and Programs], as it has replies to another four objections, much better than the concatenation I constructed here. I wrote the criticism section as an introduction, not an exhaustive account. If you want to improve it, please do, but use something with a bit more grunt than one Blogger's opinion.

Far too many folk read one account and decide that the Chinese Room must be wrong, usually because they do not see what it is the argument is saying. The argument does not claim that AI is impossible. Nor that the brain is not a machine. But undergrad computer scientists the world over, after a quick scan of some third party summary, decide it tries to do either or both. The argument claims that a machines' being able to pass the Turing test is not sufficient reason to suppose that the machine has a mind that is the same as a human mind; Your "false Premise" does no more than claim that a machine that passes the Turing test passes the Turing test. It does not even address the issue. The statement "Searle's assumption that it is possible to pass the Turing test using purely syntactical rules is wrong" is not even close, since that assumption is not made by Searle, but by the advocates of strong AI. If you think otherwise, then tell us what more is involved in the Chinese room than syntactic rules.

So far as I can see, the argument you present is without merit, and should be removed. There is plenty of far better material you could use to mount a case against Searle. Banno June 30, 2005 12:34 (UTC)

Banno, I am not "mounting a case against Searle". I added the false premise reply because it is a point that often comes up in discussions of the Chinese Room on philosophy discussion boards. I'm sorry if the best written version of it I could find was written by a blogger. It seems clear to me that you are rather obsessed with defending the Chinese Room argument, rather than writing a comprehensive article about it. Since it is apparent that you "own" the article and will only be satisfied once you have bullied me off with your nonsensical analyses of the "merits" of the argument, which however simple, you seem completely incapable of grasping. Rather than try to explain for the nth time why your rebuttal is both absurd and original research, I'm going to stop wasting my time, and leave the article to your disposal. I'm taking the article off my watchlist, so feel free to delete whatever you want and add pictures of pink bunnies or whatever suites your fancy. Kaldari 30 June 2005 14:56 (UTC)
That's unfair. The argument in "false premise" is inadequate; I had hoped that you would meet the challenge and produce a better argument. I think that the article as it stands is biased in favour of Searle, but I don't think that this should be fixed by simply adding any old junk that disagrees with him. I have been quite explicit, I think, in explaining the inadequacies of the section in question. If that peeves you, then tough, but don't blame me if you are unable to fix those inadequacies. Banno June 30, 2005 19:47 (UTC)

[edit] Argument's Failure

My comments in parentheses - Banno June 29, 2005 08:27 (UTC)

Searle's Chinese room argument's failing (clearly POV - Searle and others contend that the argument does not fail -Banno)stems from his inability to differentiate between the computational substrate and the computation itself. (given what is said below, it appears that the anonymous author of this section is not aware of Searle's substantial discussion of the Background, which corresponds reasonable well with "computational substrate", but is a much clearer concept -Banno)

For a Chinese individual the computational substrate is the physical world with all its rules for chemical reactions and atomic interactions, the program is his brain. His computationally active brain (program) understands Chinese (the equation of "brain" and "program" is problematic - "brain" and "mind" might work -Banno).

In the Chinese room, the individual is the computational substrate. (Why? why isn't the physical world outside the room the computational substrate, as it is for the individual above? -Banno) He knows nothing of Chinese, merely manipulating characters. The program is the rulebook. The computationally active rulebook (program) computed by the individual understands Chinese.

In the Chinese room example, Searle takes the individual and claims to debunk strong AI by stating that he doesn't really understand Chinese. What Searle is doing is taking the computational substrate and stating it doesn't understand. None of Searle's brain's atoms and chemical reactions understands English. His active brain however does. (This appears to be a variation of the systems reply - the parts do not understand Chinese, but the whole does -Banno)

[interjection] Similarly one could say that in the water-pipe example Searle misinterprets the function of the human delivering the results. If we imagine the waterpipes as connections within the brain, the water as impulses, and the valves as synapses we have (assuming equivalent structure and complexity) a snapshot of a chinese speakers brain and therefore the system assumes any level of cognition that we could attribute to the chinese speaker who served as a model for the system. The human in the room forms an input/output conduit and nothing more - transmitting stimuli/triggers to the brain and returning the appropriate responses dumbly as directed. A completely paralysed chinese speaker may only have hearing for input and can only return sequences of blinks to signal his understanding however we would not say that this limitation was a result of his intelligence or understanding ... ~What Searle does here is to deny that any such understanding takes place because the eyelids and ears themselves do not understand chinese. This seems rather absurd to me however I appreciate that I may be reading his objection out of context.
I think, instead, a better argument would be that a chinese speakers brain was capable of configuring and adapting to ongoing stimuli to reach the point where it was able to understand chinese. The waterpipe system, though complex enough to deliver snapshots of the chinese speakers current processes, is assumed incapable of such growth or self adaptation. Sureley the true test of any complex systems 'intelligence' is its ability to adapt to its environment ... one would require a system of pipes and plumbers which, from an initial configuration, could be taken anywhere in the world and would, over time, learn to provide 'appropriate' and 'self-determined' responses. To 'function' if you prefer.
Of course, I am a strong believer that there is nothing magical about the human brain or the thought processes. I believe that intelligence, free will, and determinism is largely illusory and results only from complexity at a level we will, as individuals, never understand. The facade is necessary for our evolutionary function and psychological wellbeing so I think it is quite normal for many find such a concept unbearable. Most of us would rather believe that there is a fundamental difference between brain and machine or between mind and program/data. I think we all need to get over our own sense of self-importance and accept ourselves as nothing more than complex pattern-matching systems which, in time, given the massive parallelism promised by quantum computing, will be not only emulated but inevitably superceded. From the humblest ant to a music composing songbird, from algae to mankind ... we are all gods unto ourselves and dust unto the universe.
Of course, I have never composed a sonnet or symphony - so, in some peoples evaluation, I may not be qualified to bring any meaningful ideas to this debate.GMC)

Searle's counter argument that the individual could memorise the rulebook changes nothing. The substrate is still the individual's brain; the program is in his memory. When the individual runs the rulebook from memory, he doesn't understand Chinese but the active program does (This appears confused, since the active program would appear to be no more than the individual acting from the rule book...so how can the individual not understand Chinese when the active program does? - Banno)

To extend his counter argument, if a real Chinese person were to interact with the individual merely running the Chinese rule book from memory, we would have two entities that understand Chinese conversing with one another.

In a computer analogy, in the case of the real Chinese, the "Chinese" program, his brain, is run in "hardware" mode (what does "hardware mode" mean? -Banno). For the other individual, the "Chinese" program is run in "software" mode, the individual's brain's computational capabilities are used to run the "Chinese" program. In the end, there are two entities that understand Chinese conversing together.

The conclusion is one that has been known in computer science for a very long time. That computational substrate is irrelevant to the active computation. There is no such thing as fake computation. All computation is genuine. Computation is computation regardless of whether the substrate is physical or emulated. (? -Banno)

The poster is referring to Turing equivalence.--207.245.10.221 23:25, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Mario eating magic mushrooms on a real Nintendo is the same Mario that eats magic mushrooms on a Nintendo emulated on my computer, and is the same Mario that eats magic mushrooms on a Nintendo emulated a computer emulated on another computer.

there are indeed responses to Searle that really on differentiating emulation from simulation. Perhaps the author had these in mind. A clearer exposition would be most welcome. Banno June 29, 2005 08:27 (UTC)
This is all Original Research. Where are the sources that are making these arguments/counterarguments? Kaldari 29 June 2005 18:09 (UTC)
Agreed; and therefore the section should not be included. Banno June 29, 2005 18:32 (UTC)
A proof that Searle's argument is false: 1. Chinese-speaking humans "understand" Chinese. 2. The way in which they "understand" chinese is by taking in stimuli to their ears, converting it to electric potentials, then sending it through the paths of the brain. 3. If you hollowed out the chinese-speaker's brain, and instead hooked up the ear nerves to a monitor, and sat a person down in front of the monitor with instructions for how to replicate the neural interations that would have taken place in the brain, then carry out those interactions, then output the reply, then the effect is reproduced. 4. By Searle's emulation argument, the Chinese speaker therefore does not understand Chinese. 5. By contradiction with axiom given in point 1, Searl's argument is false. QED --Bmk 04:16, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
There's not necessarily any contradiction there. The Chinese speaker with the hollowed out brain might not understand Chinese. Remember, Searle is saying that there is more to understanding than just getting the right input/output correlations. Your axiom 2 assumes that there isn't any more to it than this, so you're just begging the question. Cadr 12:21, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


Axiom 2 looks like common sense to me, unless you wish to propose some mechanism by which non-physical processes may produce a physical result in the Chinese-speaker's behaviour. If we're not positing the brain as some sort of 'antenna' that communicates with an ethereal, non-physical entity that does all the 'understanding' itself and meat-puppets the human to act as if it understands, then we're stuck with the notion that electrical and chemical processes in the brain are enough to explain understanding. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.174.23.210 (talk) 12:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] The short version

In this diagram, we show that "PROCESSOR + PROGRAM = PROCESS".

           |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
           |   PROCESSOR    |      PROGRAM       |           PROCESS               |
|----------|----------------|--------------------|---------------------------------|
| Searle:  |Laws of physics | Brain              | Mind, no Chinese understanding  |
|----------|----------------|--------------------|---------------------------------|
| Chinese: |Laws of physics | Brain              | Mind with Chinese understanding |
|----------|----------------|--------------------|---------------------------------|
| Room:    |Mind            | Rulebook           | Chinese understanding           |
|----------|----------------|--------------------|---------------------------------|
| Memory:  |Mind            | Memorized rulebook | Chinese understanding           |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Notice in the last two cases that the mind(PROCESSOR) is not the one that has Chinese understanding.

From Searle's 3 premise argument

  1. Programs are purely formal (syntactic). (That is true, all the programs in the "PROGRAM" column are purely syntactic.)
  2. Human minds have mental contents (semantics). (That is true, the mind is a PROCESS that has semantics.)
  3. Syntax by itself is neither constitutive of, nor sufficient for, semantic content. (That is true, the syntax(PROGRAM) is no closer to understanding Chinese than the PROCESSOR.)
  4. Therefore, programs by themselves are not constitutive of nor sufficient for minds. (That is true, the PROGRAM requires a PROCESSOR to create a PROCESS.)

We have to be careful not to compare apples and oranges. Although all of the above premises and the final deduction are true, the conclusion that Searle extrapolates from it, that computers(PROCESSOR) running human made software(PROGRAM) cannot understand Chinese(PROCESS), is a step beyond his logical arguments.

This is not Searle's conclusion. Quite the opposite. He does claim in several places that a suitable arrangement of a processor and interface could understand Chinese in the way a human does; he must, since he thinks that the human mind is such an arrangement. What the Chinese Room shows is that satisfaction of the Turing test does not imply possession of such a mind. Banno June 29, 2005 18:41 (UTC)
Is that all it's meant to demonstrate? It's not "directed at" the more general claim that "the appropriately programmed computer literally has cognitive states"? If not -- if this is a misconception so widespread that Searle himself believes it -- then we should take pains in the article to correct that misconception, starting with radical changes to the introduction. --Echeneida
Why? Banno 21:31, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Does Wikipedia Understand the Chinese Room Argument?

One would think that, since the Chinese Room argument is within Wikipedia, and I can ask Wikipedia about it, that Wikipedia would thus understand the Chinese Room argument.

Ha! Too bad that's hardly a turing test. --Echeneida
Too bad that Wikipedia has no Proccessor and therefore we can't argue that its a machine. Besides, this discussion has nothing to do with improving this article.--Sampi 23:34, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
Wouldn't wikipedia be considered a information storage system because it dose no computing, only retreaval? xercessthegreat
In reply to Sampi and Xercess: The sum of Wikipedia users, taken together with a certain database in Tampa, Florida, constitute a massively parallel computation device which does understand the Chinese Room argument. This is what I believe the clever anon was refering to by "Wikipedia". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DavidMcCabe (talk • contribs) 21:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC).
Just remember that Searle does admit that there is a machine capable of understanding meanings and being conscious: this machine is human brain. The argument demonstrates that no other machine can do the same. Therefore I think that Wikipedia as the sum of its users is more similar to a sum of human brains, having a body and living in a world, than to a software, or a simulation of a software (as the english-speaker person in the chinese room is). Chiara 08:55, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Searle's responses

Searle's defense of the systems argument is a little flawed. He suggests that if the man in the room memorizes all of the rules and leaves the room that he's able to converse in Chinese without knowing the language - then we have a case where he doesn't understand chinese but yet is able to speak in it.

I would argue that we then have two intelligences in one brain. If you ask the guy a question in Chinese, he responds, intelligently, using his internalized rules. However, if you ask him in English what it was he just said, he won't know. This is the heart of Searle's defense - he doesn't understand Chinese. However, you can simply reverse the argument. Ask him a question in English - and then ask (in Chinese) what he just said - and his 'Chinese self' will be unable to answer.

There is complete symmetry here. You simply have two brains inside one head with no way (apart perhaps from speed of response and flaws in the Chinese rulebook) to know which is the 'real' man. That being the case, what reason have you to assume that either the Chinese brain or the English brain is the 'real' one? If you can't tell, what is to say that the Chinese half isn't intelligent?

This is what makes the Turing test a reasonable one. If you simply cannot in any way tell the difference between human responses and AI responses, then what reason do you have to say that the AI system isn't intelligent. To deny intelligence is to say that one's definition of intelligence being a human-only property is unfalsifiable. Unfalsifiable claims are not scientific. (unsigned)

Whoever wrote this understands the systems defense quite well, and has noticed a weakness in our description of it. I've added a sentence to try to fix that. Meanwhile, I've noticed that there are other defenses available, which probably deserve to be written up. Here's one place they can be found: http://www.iep.utm.edu/c/chineser.htm#SH2a [2]. Perhaps someone would be willing to do this. Alienus 06:13, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd just like to add that while I think the anon comment was very insightful, I think the falsifiability issue is a bit of a red herring. Searle doesn't have to give you a test which will determine which half of the man's mind is the "real man". He is only seeking to establish the principled philosophical distinction between the two halves. In fact, Searle would be contradicting himself if he gave you such a test, because the indistinguishability of the Chinese room from a real Chinese speaker is a premise of Searle's argument. Cadr 21:57, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
In fact, one of the counterarguments is that Searle is contradicting himself. Searle's goal is to create a distinction, but it's not a principled one, nor is a difference that makes any sort of difference. Consider the parallel of philosophical zombies, in which the premise states that a p-zombie acts in all ways like a regular person, yet the argument keeps distinguishing between p-zombies and people by positing what it sets out to prove: qualia. Both of these arguments are refuted, then, by operationalism (or, more specifically, behaviorism). Al 12:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, there is no point getting into an argument about this here, so I'll try to keep this response brief. I agree that Searle's distinction is not principled, but it is backed by some pretty impressive intuitions. I think he's right that intuitively, we do feel that there is more to understanding than input/output correspondance. In my opinion, his most persuasive point in this regard (which I think is really much more persuasive than the Chinese room) is that if we ignore our intuitions about understanding/conciousness, we are pretty much forced to accept that livers, stomachs, etc. are concious, since they can perfectly well be said to process information. Now, if we accept that it is unlikely that stomachs are in fact concious, we have real evidence for qualia -- evidence which is stronger than the intuitive evidence from the Chinese room thought experiment, in my view.
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at with behaviorism and operationalism. Behaviorism in the strict sense is incompatible with functionalism anyway. Operationalism amounts to a refusal to consider the possibility that concious things have intrinstic qualities responsible for their concious nature, and therefore doesn't refute anything except in the trivial sense that skepticism refutes everything. Searle raises an important question for functionalists -- the problem of distinguishing between things which think and things which don't -- which operationalism is inherently incapable of addressing.
Personally, I think Searle is probably wrong, I've just not come across any completely convincing refutation of his arguments. Cadr 14:37, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we shouldn't belabor this point or turn Talk into Debate, but it does help to discuss these ideas a bit, so that we can figure out what parts are worth expanding, summarizing and so on. I'll try to be brief, though.

Searle's argument is based on starting with an intuition and magnifying it. The problem is that the intuition is itself suspect. Like many intuitions, it gives a reasonable approximation of the truth, at least when applied to typical, everyday situations. Yes, there is such a thing as consciousness, as what red looks like and even what it's like to be the Pope. However, it doesn't necessarily follwo that these things exist in a manner that, even in principle, can be separated from behavior.

If we understand consciousness as the capacity to behave in the way that we define as conscious, if perceptions exist solely in terms of behavior and behavioral dispositions and what it's like is in principle shareable, then we keep all the necessary parts of consciousness without violating physicalism. This is what I meant by behaviorism and operationalism. If consciousness is operationally defined in terms of behavior, p-zombies become self-contradictory, and the Chinese room may well qualify as conscious. Al 17:59, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

He seems to make a related point here:
The only motivation for saying that there must be a subsystem in me that understands Chinese is that I have a program and I can pass the Turing test; I can fool native Chinese speakers. But precisely one of the points at issue is the adequacy of the Turing test. The example shows that there could be two 'systems', both of which pass the Turing test, but only one which understands; and it is no argument against this point to say that since they both pass the Turing test they must both understand, since this claim fails to meet the argument that the system in me that understands Chinese has a great deal more than the system that merely processes Chinese. In short, the systems reply simply begs the question by insisting without argument that the system must understand Chinese.
Cadr 22:12, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What about Gödel's incompleteness theorems?

The rulebook is a fixed set of rules, presumably complex enough to be able to give answers about natural numbers and logical statements – therefore it is strong enough that the Gödel's incompleteness theorem can be applicable. That means, that there are inputs that are just undecidable according to the rulebook – the person would not be able to deduce the correct reply, not even find out if he is able to find the reply beforehand (see Halting problem). Of course, the rulebook might not contain only first-order logic, but also second-order logic, and this complicates matters (but from the original description, it seems strongly that only first-order logic statements are used). You can distinguish this system from a native chinese speaker by timing responses, or by giving double-meaning questions – unless there is some randomness in the rules (e.g. flip a coin and if if it falls this way, write this character).

However, the real question is "can a natural language be axiomatized with finite number of first-order (or even second-order) logic rules, or an axiom schema?" rado 10:19, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

How do you know the human brain can't be axiomatized with a finite number of first-order logic rules? Godel doesn't really come into this.--Robert Merkel 22:32, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
But the human brain is not a rule set. The Room is a machine. LoopZilla 10:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
You're indulging in Proof by assertion. How do you know the brain isn't a rule set? --Robert Merkel 10:11, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
That is in fact a deep philosophical question. Even if we are materialists, we cannot be quite sure - it comes down to the question if a physical objects can be axiomatized, and that is not trivial to answer. Physics seems to be based on the assumption that it has to be axiomatizable, but in fact it is discovering more and more axioms as we go deeper and deeper (quite comparable to the mathematics, in order to explain the whole theory we have to start adding additional axioms, and Gödel shows that we can never reach the end).
Human brain can be crudely axiomatized on the neuron synaptic level, almost perfectly on molecule level, but if we get to rid of the "almost", we have to go deeper into quantum wave functions and probabilities and different quantum theory interpretations come forth. "Chinese room" is even much cruder than the synaptic level, and therefore I think it cannot reach the level of sophistication able to simulate an average chinese speaking person - for that, you need axioms and rules describing at least 10¹¹ neurons and their connections. rado 14:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
If there was a set of rules for a brain it would just follow those rules, with determined inputs. Most human have brains that act with logic and also illogical aspects. Examples are fear and pain. LoopZilla 20:57, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I just want to point out that timing the response is not a fair method for determining if there's really a mind inside. One of the inherent distortions of the Chinese room argument is that any implementation would have to be incredibly slow, on the order of centuries between responses. Dennett argues that this fact confuses our intuitions terribly. Alienus 19:00, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

To make a long answer short: The room is not required to give correct yes or no answers to any question expressible in chinsese. It just gives the answers a chinese would give.

[edit] Searle, Language and stuff like that

Searle's gedanken is really a smoke screen. The rule set of the room remains fixed, no matter how many questions are asked and answered.

Human intelligence creates langauge. New words, phrases, dialects and languages are born in a continuous manner.

TXT, slang, poetry, polari....

'Nuff said.

LoopZilla 18:25, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, a computer program can be written to create language as well.

The Chinese Room is not capable of doing so, showing that it's a poor model of AI. A computer program can even be self-modifying, again something the Chinese Room can't do.

Exile 14:44, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Uhm, if the virtual Chinese person were incapable of creativity, that would be a dead give-away, wouldn't it? In order for Searle's thought experiment to work, the rule book would have to be so huge as to include all creative acts that the virtual Chinese person would have been capable of. Strains credibility, but that's what Searle demands. Alienus 18:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
The Chinese room is of course a Turing machine. So the demand you speak of is not Searle's, but that of the advocates of AI. What Searle does is show us some consequences of the idea that a Turing machine might be capable of thought. Banno 20:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
That doesn't follow. See above for why. Alienus 23:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
You're argument about creativity doesn't necessarily hold up. According to Douglas Hofstaedter, creativity is variation on a theme. Therefore, given thematice input, there is no reason why an extremely well programmed turing machine could not write variations of the theme to itself. In fact, there is a fair amount of research into creative computers, including computers capable of writing stories and making music. And btw, Banno's interpretation of the purpose of Searle's thought experiment is correct.Shaggorama 10:08, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The rulebook can have an arbitrarily large (but fixed) amount of memory by storing the memory content encoded in the currently executed rule number. It is an absurdly inefficient method, but it works. The rulebook can memorize earlier experiences in that memory and make decisions based on them later on.

[edit] Second language speakers

It can be argued that, Assembly being the native lagnauge, Chinese woudl be a second language to the computer. I don't speak chinese, but I did take several years of spanish. When I have to pee around spanish-speakers, I formulate the English question "where are the bathrooms?", then translate it as follows: "where is Donde, bathrooms are Banos, plural so los banos, where are is donde esta, so donde esta los banos?" and only then do I ask the question in spanish. The reply comes "alli, a la izquierdo de los sombreros". My brain takes the words and picks them apart: "alli is over there, so I should look where they're pointing. Los sombreros... oh, the hats. OK, by the hats... izquierdo, that's um... left. Left of the hats. Got it. Now I want to thank them. Thanks is.. gracias." then I say "gracias." I am not fluent in Spanish, but I am considered to speak it. How is that different? Kuroune 03:40, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Because you know what a bathroom is. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.174.23.210 (talk) 13:01, 8 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Confusion

Maybe I'm just really confused, but I personally don't think this argument works. I mean, aren't our brains' understandings of natural languages similar in the manner of really just being tables of words that we cobble together into coherent (usually) sentences? How is this any different for a machine?

You're not necessarily confused. Many people who have studied artificial intelligence think that the argument is wrong. --Robert Merkel 06:32, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Structure

The article is becoming quite messy. The argument is presented in the introduction in a form that does not appear in Searle's writing. The original paper is described twice, the citation being made the second time around; the thought experiment is described at least twice, in different parts of the text. The Turing test is poorly described. The history of the argument is presented out of sequence and is repetitive.

I suggest going back to an earlier version. Banno 23:18, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] [OT] Of course, students produce right answers without understanding...

One of the funny things about this is that it evokes what literally happens in educational settings, especially educational settings where progress is measured by test scores.

A student can memorize a sentence such as "the heart is the organ that pumps blood." He can then correctly answer a variety of questions, multiple-choice and otherwise. "What organ of the body pumps blood? ________ " The heart. "True or false: the liver pumps blood." F. "What fluid is most closely associated with the heart? a) Bile b) Phlegm c) Lymph d) Blood?" D. In fact, he could memorize a dozen such sentences, and then apply linguistic manipulation to them and paraphrase them to produce a short essay on circulation, good enough to get a C- anyway.

He can do all this without having the slightest understanding of hearts, blood, or pumps. It could just as well be "the gostak is the erigon that distims the doshes."

My own experience is that perhaps 80% of what I learned in college, including those subjects I aced, was this kind of learning. Not quite as bad as that; I wasn't just applying syntactic machinery to memorized verbal content. I had formed a mental model. (Offhand, I'd say that applying syntactic machinery to memorized verbal content is good enough to get you a C; any mental model will get you into the B+ or A- range).

But in many cases I had formed a sketchy, crude, or inadequate mental model. In the case of knowledge I actually used over the years, I acquired a much deeper understanding. For the material I really know, my test answers and scores would not be much different now then they were decades ago, but the mental model I would be using to produce those answers would be utterly different--and much more accurate when applied outside the narrow range being exercised in the test. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:34, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with the article

The article makes an important mistake quite near the beginning when it says the following: "Now, Searle asks us to suppose that he is sitting inside the computer. In other words, he is in a small room in which he receives Chinese symbols, looks them up on look-up table, and returns the Chinese symbols that are indicated by the table.".

It is essential to the functionalist argument that the book in the room is *not* a look-up table. Such a situation would be analogous to a 'computer' that simply had an enormous hard drive and responded to any input by simply retrieving the correct response and spitting it out. This does not fit the functionalist conception of mind [incidentally I'm not sure the article makes clear enough the relationship between machine functionalism and 'hard AI'] whereby a brain is a computer running a suitable program - ie it needs to *work out* what to respond with based on the input and various rules, not simply look it up.

In Searle's Chinese Room there are two piles of cards, one which constitutes a book in Chinese, and another which contains background information (again written in Chinese). The book, which takes the place of the program in the analogy, gives instructions in English for how to use cards from each to respond to an input based on the structure of that input. While most of the article does not continue to treat the argument in this fallacious way, that opening section should still be changed to avoid perpetuating the mis-understanding.


Another change that should be made is in the first of the objections. "This leads to the interesting problem of a person being able to converse fluently in Chinese without "knowing" Chinese, and a counterargument says that such a person actually does understand Chinese even though they would claim otherwise. A related argument is that the person doesn't know Chinese but the system comprising the person and the rule book does.". The last sentence is wholly superfluous as it is not a 'related' argument, it is a restatement of the argument made at the very beginning of the paragraph. The first sentence is fine, but it would be good to add the supporting argument against the person understanding Chinese - ie that while they might be able to say the words for "the sun is shining" they could never know that those words actually related to the sun.



This paragraph is ugly too. "But what if a brain simulation were connected to the world in such a way that it possessed the causal power of a real brain—perhaps linked to a robot of the type described above? Then surely it would be able to think. Searle agrees that it is in principle possible to create an artificial intelligence, but points out that such a machine would have to have the same causal powers as a brain. It would be more than just a computer program."


I'd be happy to make all these changes myself, but I have made no significant contributions to Wikipedia before, and would be nervous doing it now without some agreement.

[edit] Computer is NOT a look up table; original Chinese room definition wanted.

Quoting the article:

"Suppose that, many years from now, we have constructed a computer which behaves as if it understands Chinese. In other words, the computer takes Chinese characters as input, consults a large look-up table (as all computers can be described as doing), and then produces other Chinese characters as output. Suppose that this computer performs this task so convincingly that it easily passes the Turing test."

Such a computer will fail the Turing test - it won't be able to answer "What was my previous question?" or "How long we are chatting?".

A computer usually has an internal state (memory, registers, etc), so "consults a large look-up table (as all computers can be described as doing)" is wrong or at least incomplete.

Could someone find and post the original definition of the Chinese room, whatever it was?

--Whichone 20:39, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

That is the original definition (not sure if it's a verbatim quote, but it's accurate). You shouldn't take the idea of a "look-up table" too seriously -- Searle wasn't concerned with the precise mechanism. The instructions would be sufficiently complicated that the room would be able to answer the questions you gave. The room is a thought experiment, it's not supposed to be something which could actually plausibly exist. Cadr 20:50, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but the salient point here is that not all computers can be described as consulting lookup tables, so the assertion in the article is simply false. It's also not clear to me from Searle's original article that he's talking about lookup tables. He certainly talks about symbol sets, and correlating symbols from one set with symbols from others. But it's not clear that he's talking about a simple one-to-one mapping of questions to answers. (Indeed, in the responses section, he countenances the idea that the man in the room needs to perform various calculations in the course of selecting the correct set of answer symbols.)
Whether or not Searle's argument fails if he's talking about a lookup table, the article shouldn't say he's talking about a lookup table if he's not. 68.239.37.231 23:33, 13 September 2006 (UTC)VP
"The room is a thought experiment, it's not supposed to be something which could actually plausibly exist." It can't be Searle's opinion, otherwise the paradox degenerates into a trivial "Suppose we live in a world where both nondestructible objects and unstoppable forces exist - what would happen if they meet? " --Whichone 21:58, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, first off, the Chinese room isn't a paradox. In point of fact, it would not in the least trivialise Searle's argument if it were shown that the Chinese room (or something like it) couldn't exist. Searle is trying to show that functionalist ideas about what constitutes thought or conciousness are wrong. He does this by imagining the existence of a hypothetical object which a functionalist would (Searle argues) be obliged to say was capable of thought/conciousness, and saying: "look, this hypothetical object is clearly capable of neither". The question of whether or not the object can or does exist is simply irrelevant. So far as I know, no criticisms of the Chinese room argument (of which there are many) disagree on this point. I suggest that you read Searle's original article to get an idea of what it is he's trying to argue. Cadr 22:43, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
You're correct here. While there are what I would consider convincing counter-arguments against the Chinese room, none are based directly on practicality. The closest is an aside by Dennett about how, in addition to being false on stricter grounds, the argument is misleading because it hides the fact that any attempt to emulate a person's behavior by explicitly manipulating symbols would lead to reaction times measured in decades, not milliseconds. The net effect of this distortion is to downplay the amount of work involved and to piggyback on the intuition that not enough work could be done in realtime by such a room to succeed in being conscious. Al 15:54, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Even 'decades' falls far short of the true magnitude of the difference. Given current estimates of the computational power equivalent of a human brain of 10^14—10^17 operations per second, a Chinese room staffed by one human agent at a time could be expected to have typical response times on the order of millions or even billions of years.--207.245.10.221 21:09, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Whichone is of course correct, however I think the problem here is the confusion of 'implausible' with 'impossible'—it is, after all, the very purpose of a thought experiment to establish the boundary between the two. A classic example in SR of a thought experiment invalidated by an impossible premise is the scenario in which one sends a signal faster than light by pushing on one end of a long and infinitely rigid rod. (SR places an upper bound on the rigidity of any physically possible material.)
A recent debate in GR concerned whether or not causality could be violated by a pair of parallel cosmic strings passing each other close by at relativistic speeds. While no-one truly expected to find such a thing out in the real universe, it raised serious questions about the nature of time in GR until it was definitively established that this arrangement simply could not appear in any spacetime with physically realistic boundary conditions. --207.245.10.221 22:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citations in replies

The replies are in great need of supporting citations. Banno 21:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I do know that the "robot reply" is attributed at least somewhat to Jerry Fodor, but that's all I've got. One source that could be used is the textbook Philosophical Problems: An Annotated Anthology, edited by Laurence BonJour and Ann Baker. The argument would probably need to be rephrased to fit what's in the book. --Clpo13 06:17, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conscious Machine

I do not understand the debate over the computer having consciousness. Why is it so difficult to comprehend? When people dream, are they aware of the fact that they are dreaming? Are they aware of their very own existence beyond the dream?

If I was dreaming and pictured myself as the English speaking person in the Chinese room example, isn't this English speaking person (me in my dreams) conscious of his existence. Although this presence is only imaginary, but I am not aware of it. Thus, this English speaking person in the Chinese room example is as real and conscious as the real me.

But how can this fictional character have consciousness when it doesn't exist at all. But it does. Similarly, the real myself could be a part of someone else's dream, and I wouldn't know the difference. To me, it's all real.

Similarly, can't we fake a program into believing that it actually exists when it doesn't? In fact, I even wrote the code for it in Java.

boolean conscious = true;

As long as the machine is alive, this variable is set to true. When it dies, or runs out of battery etc., we set this variable to false. This machine and all its "imaginary" creations lookup this variable to check their own existence. (the above added by 129.107.37.99 (talk • contribs))

This is the talk page for Chinese room . Your comments would be more appropriate for a philosophy forum of some sort. Cheers. Banno
This is in response to one of the responses by Searle in "The Failures of Computationalism." Besides the discussion on strong AI, the Chinese Room example also states that computers can not have cognitive abilities. Anuragmishra

[edit] Reductio Ad Absurdum

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this argument as stated is not sound:

1. If Strong AI is true, then there is a program for L such that if any computing system runs that program, that system thereby comes to understand L. 2. I could run a program for L without thereby coming to understand L. 3. Therefore Strong AI is false.

Statement 1 only asserts that there must be 'a' program for L such that etc. 2 then asserts that 'a' program can be run without gaining understanding. That, however does not necessarily mean there is 'no' prgram that could give a computing system understanding of the language, just that there is definitely one that doesn't.

That section apears to be origional research, anyway. Should be removed. Banno 21:24, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Searle's Dualism Concept

I firmly believed Searle's Chinese Room argument was invalid until I read the lengthy document containing his original argument and all his responses. He talks about Dualism. Now I think he's not absolutely wrong. The concept of dualism is crucial to build intelligent machines. It basically says that we humans work at two levels, the mind and the brain. The mind is more abstract and is not concerned with how the brain actually processes information. The brain does all the work, and the mind is only aware of what's being done, not how it's being done.

A similiar approach for programming intelligent systems, I believe, would be useful. An abstract layer just like the mind which is not concerned with internal processing details interacts with the world. Another underlying layer, the brain of the computer, does the actual processing. It seems logical because by representing actual concepts or objects as symbols, processing becomes easier. I believe the brain also transforms input into some other form to facilitate processing.

I'll refer to the computer's mind and brain as simply mind and brain. An additional layer between this mind and brain would be useful. This layer basically is the interpreter between these two layers. It understands the worldly concepts, and also the underlying representation and can convert to and from these forms, as needed. So, the mind never needs to worry about internal representation. The intermediary layer converts the information to a form the mind can understand. Likewise, the brain does not worry about any sot of conversion.

It's not very different from how compilers work. Just that the mind and the brain have an associated memory, which is ongoing, and doesn't get deleted when the program stops execution.

But I still think we don't have to replicate the exact human structure to achieve this intelligence. These layers, which can be implemented as programs, could very well understand what's going on, and at the same time, exhibit intelligence.

[edit] ELIZA

I'm surprised that this page makes no mention of ELIZA, which seems to be a pretty strong argument in favor of the Chinese Room argument.

Eliza is a poor argument in favour because it's a very poor example of an AI. It certainly is a *long* way from passing the Turing Test. ELIZA-like programmes are a dead-end in Strong AI design (although they have other uses in a Weak AI context, such as computer-human interactions for smart telephone systems and the like). In fact, if anything ELIZA and their ilk are a prime source of Searle's minsunderstanding of AI and the reason he came up with such a specious argument in the first place. FSharpMajor 13:20, 5 March 2007 (UTC) (PS: this talk page is more interesting than the article)

[edit] Sources

I'm new to wikipedia, so sorry if I ask something trivial. Why is this article flagged as having no sources? Are the Related works not considered to be sources? Thanks Chiara 09:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering the same. There's a lot of {fact} tags in there that aren't really needed, as most of the material is based on one primary source, the Minds Brains and Programs article itself. There should be a cite for some of the criticisms, though FSharpMajor 13:23, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Representation the mind and AI

Searles "Chinese room" contains no represenations of the world external to language, or for that matter anything. The room operates purely at the level of if input then output. Real AI on the other hand would have to have an internal "picture" the real world because a table like Searle describes would take too long to write and too much processing power to look through. In other words the Chinese room doesn't understand anything not because it lacks the "casual powers of the brain" but because it lacks the right cognitive architecture. If the Chinese Room used represenations of the way the world is in order to generate it's responses, and was capable of adapting it's current representation of the world based on data instead of just a massive list of if then rules then it would be sentinent.

Did that make sense?

Yes, but Searle's argument doesn't say anything about the internal structure of the programme (as mentioned above, it's not just described as a look-up table but a full-blown program (although he misleads sometimes because he describes the instructions as also being in Chinese). One thing someone alluded to above is that what he's also very quiet about is the amount of space the rule book would have to devote to conditional branching, loops and so on - that is, how little of it would relate to the content. So anyway: according to Searle the program can have any architecture at all, it's still not conscious. (And incidentally, it certainly would have to have real-world knowledge, otherwise it wouldn't seem to be a native speaker of Chinese - or possibly it would seem like an aphasiac native speaker of Chinese) FSharpMajor 13:27, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lack or presence of dynamic state

The article does not mention any dynamic state, which is necessary to give contextually meaningful answers or more generally answers about the past. If Searle's scenario does include dynamic state, then that should be mentioned. If it doesn't, then that should be mentioned. The argument fails in different ways (category error versus irrelevancy) depending on whether there is a dynamic state. But it would perhaps be wrong to mention the failure modes since as far as I can recall from the SciAm article the simple ways that the argument fails were not discussed so that that would probably constitute "original research", no matter how trivial it is. Alfps 18:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

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