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Psychology of cognitive researchers.

1. Abstract

The field of investigation of human cognition, which

The Chinese room.

First a clarification: I am talking here about the Chinese room analogy, not about searle opinions in general.

The Chinese room (Searle, 198?) is a widely referred analogy between computers and the 'Chinese room', and Searle (and others) claim it proves that computers cannot think. The analogy is a blatant nonsense (, because to prove something about computers by analogy, you need something which behaves similarly to computer, and the 'Chinese romm' obviously does not.

Searle develop the argument by claiming that like computers, the 'Chinese Room' does not have Intentionality. However, the 'Chinese Room' cannot tell us whether computers hace Intentionality or whether a system without Intentionality can think. Thus the 'Chinese Room' analogy cannot contribute anything to Searle's argument, whether it is correct or not.

So why do people find this analogy convincing?

One reason is the blatant nonsense effect: The reader doesn't believe that Searle will do such a stupid mistake, so assume it is just that shhe (the reader) missed something.

The other explanation if that people like the conclusion.

Yehouda Harpaz
yh@maldoo.com
2Nov96
http://human-brain.org/