Assignment #3: The Chinese Room

The Chinese Room

I found the articles to be rather repetitive.  The original document is written in words so complex that in order to understand the meaning of the document, a dictionary is required.  The wikipedia article, while easier to read is still long winded.

The idea of the Chinese room is new to me, but I can understand where the idea came from.  In my mind it is an extension of the Turing test for computers.  The extension is from the person on the hidden location either way.  Who would have thought of using a person to simulate a computer.

This idea does bring up some ideas which are contested today and I can see why.  There is no clear definition of what exactly constitutes understanding and a brain.  My personal opinion is that there is no simple way for a computer to understand.  Understanding means that the computer has to be able quanitfy when it doesn't know something and have a way to learn that.  This does not mean that a person programs that thought for the computer.

A brain on the other hand, I simply see as the mass of material contained in our heads which is used to think (at least most of the time). Based on my definition, almost any computer is classified as a brain and can think for itself.

One of the statements from the Searle article caught my attention. "No one supposes that computer simulations of a five-alarm fire will burn the neighborhood down or that a computer simulation of a rainstorm will leave us all drenched. Why on earth would anyone suppose that a computer simulation of understanding actually understood anything?" [1]  This made me think, what all do we expect computers to be able to do that they are actually not doing.  A computer doesn't actually make an editable document, it is just a series of bits until you tell the printer to make the document.  What else are we missing?

The wikipedia article also had a statement that caught my attention.  "The sheer volume of the literature that has grown up around it inspired Pat Hayes to quip that the field of cognitive science ought to be redefined as 'the ongoing research program of showing Searle's Chinese Room Argument to be false.' " [2]  This statement clearly shows that the current people involved with cognitive sciences are still debating this topic 32 years later!  Why can we not come to a conclusion one way or another?

Honestly, I feel that this problem allows people to continue to argue without fail because there is no correct solution.  I expect that in another 20 years we might have come to a conclusion about the original questions posed in this idea, but will in no way be finished with all the other questions that this topic has and will bring up.