Can manipulating symbols ever be understanding? (The Chinese room)
Searle's Chinese room follows rules for Chinese symbols while its operator understands no Chinese. OPH's response asks what the whole implemented system actually does with its distinctions. Does a retained interpretation guide its own expectations, corrections and actions across different situations, or does it only produce a matching display? A person need not understand a neuron's role for the organized brain to understand a sentence. Conversely, fluent output alone does not establish integrated self-reading or experience. The essays identify understanding with realized, usable relations among constraints and records. That is a proposed account of understanding, not a proof that any symbol manipulation qualifies. The relevant test concerns the causal organization, including what changes under interventions.
See also How do symbols acquire meaning instead of referring only to other symbols?, Can a machine be conscious?, Does describing a universe make it exist?
Sources: The Chinese room argument and its replies
Also in Chapter 40: Does It Feel Like Anything, and What Is Left to Decide?.
This answer comes from OPH, Observer Patch Holography. OPH is a rigorous, consistent and complete description of the unified, self-creating computational Universe we inhabit. Its consistency is machine-checked: the fixed point at its core is constructed explicitly, and a theory with a model contains no contradiction.
To understand OPH and check every step yourself, start with the free book Reverse Engineering Reality. It builds the theory from the ground up, and the OPH Notebook answers your questions while you read.
read the free bookask the notebookor ask sage:read chapter 39: Why Is a Bacterium Freer Than an Atom?watch a universe make its own particles