Searle Has Not Adequately Responded to the Systems Reply
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I will here argue that Searle has not adequately responded to the systems reply. If one internalizes the room, the scratch paper, the “data banks”, etc, and is himself not a program but a system then he must have an understanding of the Chinese writing, or to him “Squiggles”.
If the rooms occupant is given the word “CAT” and in the translation guide he is given, or a data bank if you will, “CAT” equals squiggle “XYZ” with the English alphabet and the squiggle alphabet coordinating with “C” to “X”, “A”to “Y”, etc, then the internalization is that squiggle “XYZ” equals the English alphabet “CAT”. Since the occupant has had experiences outside the room he knows the concept of the word “CAT” is that of a 4 leg furry creature that has whiskers and eats mice. He must thus assume that the squiggle “XYZ” represents the same concept of a feline.
If the above is true then the occupant in the room can be said to understand the squiggle. If he receives the statement that “CAT RUNS” and must translate it to squiggles “XYZ LMNO”. He will internalize “XYZ”as “CAT”and “LMNO” as “RUNS” if asked “What does the cat do?” in English, after given the statement “XYZ LMNO” he could reply in squiggle language “LMNO” and be answering English questions in Chinese writing. The occupant is said to have understanding of what Chinese cats do.
One could ask “How dose he know cats are able to run though?” The explantion is that: ” His outside experience with cats is that at times, they do in fact run”. Now if he had no concept of cats, or running, or anything outside the room, he would be a program.
But in the systems reply it states that the man with no outside interaction is a program. Searle disagrees and says he is the system. But a system is comprised of programs. For instance I have a “subsystem” for typing. It is comprised of different “programs” that are dedicated to things such as language, muscular movements, visual feedback, etc. All things programs working together make for successful typing.
Well what are programs? The programs that I have are at their
basic level are rules like a computer have. For instance “I know cats are mammals. Cats cannot lay eggs. If a furry animal lays an egg, it is not a cat”. That rule can be programmed in and if a computer was asked “Are cats egg layers?” it would reply “No”. If I am asked the same question I will reply “No”. Our response is