Paper Reading # 7: Minds, Brains, and Programs (Searle)

     In John Searle's paper, "Minds, Brains, and Programs", he discusses the question of whether or not computers have the ability to understand. Searle, through his thought experiment of the Chinese Room, goes on to state that a computer does not in fact have the ability to comprehend or understand, it merely simulates the ability. After reading Searle's paper and reviewing his arguments and counterarguments, I find that I side with him on the matter. In my opinion, the brain is more than just an information processing system, and Searle does a good job of proving that.

     In order to prove his point, Searle first describes a computer program that takes in Chinese characters, runs them through a program, and outputs a response in Chinese. Searle's claim is that even if a computer can do this so well that it passes the Turing test, it still does not understand Chinese. The next step in his argument is that of replacing the computer with a human. The human does not speak or understand Chinese at all, but has a set of instructions (i.e. the program) that are in English, that tells him what to do with the input Chinese symbols. As can be deduced from imagining this scenario, even if the person can take in the Chinese input and follow the instructions of outputting proper Chinese symbols, enough so to carry on a conversation with a native Chinese speaker, the person still does not understand Chinese.

     With this scenario, it seems easy to be able to differentiate between understanding and merely simulating. The human in the room is merely processing information and not comprehending or realizing what is being communicated. As Searle puts it, the symbols have syntax but no semantics. Just because the person is answering correctly in Chinese, does not mean he knows what he is answering because the symbols mean nothing.

    Now, some proponents of "strong AI" (as Searle calls computer AI that understands) will argue that by this thinking, the human brain does not even understand because it is merely a machine that is calculating input and producing output. I think this is where Searle really makes his strongest point. The human brain is something more than just the informational processing. It does not just sort information but comprehends and understands unlike other "machines" can do. His analogy is that we cannot produce sugar and milk from photosynthesis and lactation simulations, so it seems silly that people assume we can produce intentionality from artificial intelligence. There is something natural about the brain that just can not be reproduced with computer hardware.