This famous beast was originally designed to shoot down 'strong AI' (the artificial creation of intentionality). John Searle put it to paper in 1980 and it's been argued up and down for the last 30 years.
Searle suggests we imagine him locked in a room with a batch of Chinese lettering. These symbols are meaningless oriental squiggles to Searle who couldn’t deliberate between them and Japanese script. Following this Searle is provided a box of English instructions for manipulating the Chinese symbols. Once these have been examined by Searle, fluent Chinese speakers begin to insert what are to him incomprehensible strings of symbols. Searle is unaware that these are in fact questions, but by following the English instructions he begins to convey the correct answers by sending out the original batch symbol by symbol.
The implication is that the people outside could satisfactorily deduce the system inside is comprehending Chinese. Of course Searle, the processor of the system, has no comprehension of Chinese what-so-ever. Therefore Searle argues if a man following instructions (a program) processes input for an informative output he has no actual comprehension of the material itself then why assume a digital computer would.I can understand why this has had such a tough reputation but I have to admit it puzzles me that it wasn't critiqued more aggressively at least in the 80's. Anyway let's give it a go.
My own criticism of the Chinese Room would underline Searle’s perception of the comprehension of language as the problem. The Chinese room argument both undermines its power and its source. Like a machine I learn that sounds and vocal inflections signify objects, actions and all manner of conditions in the real world, this makes me fluent in a language. Like a biological self replicating gene machine i feel compelled toward communicative action, an action that amidst the Human animal has allowed me to conceive of myself existentially.
Following this it seems to me that what is actually at the root of the Chinese room argument is a latent qualia argument. Searle intimates that while a computer program might have fluency in the semantics and syntax of a communication system it doesn’t really understand. I would argue in that case I don’t really understand these words I type; I am merely making use of an established set of symbols and values.One might say; "Inside my head I speak Quali-ish but I have this database that allows me to appear as if i speak a material language to the outside world..., good trick eh?"
I'll imagine my everyday agency and interaction with the physical world as analogue to the Chinese room argument. The unconscious processor(s) in my brain manipulate incomprehensible chaotic stimuli (Chinese lettering) in relation to the accretion of indigenous and externally assimilated information (English instructions and their implementation) in order to successfully engage phenomenally with the big bad world (Chinese answer). Either I'm a freakish zombie-send-Rick-Deckard-after-me-android or it turns out Deckard and everybody else are too so we can relax and pretend to learn Chinese to our hearts content.
Logically I think this makes Searle's argument a dud.
Instead of dwelling upon the fact that a processing machine in the place of Searle might not understand Chinese why not marvel at the power of the deception? Why not examine the power of the calculating system? How strange that one human animal can establish a blind system so that another individual can process questions into answers without even a rudimentary comprehension. Neither biological nor artificial intentionality are the interesting factors in the Chinese room. It is the inanimate system of calculus that exists outside the heads of our actors that provides the most interesting anomaly. We have reached a juncture in human evolution where we can establish systems that can be processed without comprehension. We (as our sentience might pluralise) are just processors favoured by natural selection to increasingly externalize our memory and cognitive operations.
So in the end Searle's argument makes a handy intuition pump for its own antithesis!
John. R. Searle: Minds, brains, and programs. (Cambridge University Press,1980)
