A note on the Chinese Room

Hannóch Ben-Yami*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

Searle's Chinese Room was supposed to prove that computers can't understand: the man in the room, following, like a computer, syntactical rules alone, though indistinguishable from a genuine Chinese speaker, doesn't understand a word. But such a room is impossible: the man won't be able to respond correctly to questions like 'What is the time?', even though such an ability is indispensable for a genuine Chinese speaker. Several ways to provide the room with the required ability are considered, and it is concluded that for each of these the room will have understanding. Hence, Searle's argument is invalid.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)169-172
Number of pages4
JournalSynthese
Volume95
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - May 1993
Externally publishedYes

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