Hacker News Reader

This is a variation of the Chinese room argument.

If you consider understanding an observable property, then the Chinese room in aggregate displays understanding of Chinese.

Would you say that humans understand nothing, because atoms don't understand anything, and we're made up of atoms?

View on HN

I would say that there is a stronger consensus that a human being can be reasonably described as a single entity than a human being using a reference resource.

A more apt comparison to my mind would be if a human being can be described as personally exerting strong nuclear force, just because their subatomic particles do, which I would happily answer "no."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com