https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
I love that this thought experiment meant to prove that computers can't think accidentally demonstrates that they functionally can. The whole premise of using it to arrive at the room that speaks Chinese can't speak Chinese relies primarily on the Fallacy of Composition, failing to account for emergent properties of a system.
As well as silently smuggling an insistence that there's a rigid definition of """"understanding"""", as though understanding were some physically identifiable essence rather than a purely philosophical/heuristic construct.
"Say hypothetically that you have a box that cured cancer, unified physics, and found waldo. But see since the guy moving papers around in the box didn't know he was doing that it means it can't actually solve any problems."
Reminds me of a guy I talked to last month doubling down on the notion by literally saying "Imagine if I took a test in Chinese and passed. Just because I can hold a fluent conversation in Chinese doesn't mean I actually speak Chinese"
Like what are we even doing here?
"Couldn't you also argue that the human brain can't speak Chinese either, since no atomic component of it has a unitary understanding of the entire task?"
2August 25, 2026 373 2
