John Searle’s “Chinese Room” is a thought experiment that he explained in his Minds, Brains and Programs. The purpose of this experiment was to prove that computers do not have a consciousness, or any sort of mind or understanding, regardless of if the machine appears to. The scenario that Searle creates begins by introducing a computer that appears to understand the Chinese language. One inputs Chinese characters, and through a computer program, it is able to produce an output of Chinese characters
In John Searle’s “Chinese Room” argument he is aiming to indicate that computers cannot think like human beings can. To demonstrate his argument he uses an example of somebody, who is not a native Chinese speaker, being locked in a room with Chinese symbols. The person is then given a book in their native language, in this case English, which tells him or her how to produce symbols effectively in Chinese. It is important to note that the English book telling whoever is locked in the room how to
1. Which view of the concept of intelligence accords better with philosophical naturalism, as it was described in class: (a) intelligence as an absolute term (like money) or (b) intelligence as a comparative term (like wealth)? Justify your answer. In short, philosophical naturalism argues that there is one and only physical natural world that exists in which all humans are included. Immaterial and supernatural souls and spirits do not exist. Humans are nothing more than a collection of highly organized