Chinese room
Noun
Meaning
Chinese room (plural Chinese rooms)
The setting of a thought experiment in which a person with no understanding of the Chinese language is locked in a room with a set of rules allowing them to produce answers to questions in Chinese. It aims to demonstrate that running a program cannot give a computer system a "mind", "understanding" or "consciousness", regardless of how intelligent it may appear.
Examples
But if the Chinese room really "understands" what it is saying, then the symbols must get their meaning from somewhere.
Critics of Searle argue that he is holding the Chinese room to a higher standard than we would hold an ordinary person.
John Searle's Chinese room is nomologically possible.
Chinese room and Turing completeness seeAlso The Chinese room has a design analogous to that of a modern computer.
In Season 4 of the American crime drama Numb3rs there is a brief reference to the Chinese room.
It is plain that any other method of probing the occupant of a Chinese room has the same difficulties in principle as exchanging questions and answers in Chinese.