Chinese Room Research Articles

Revisiting the Chinese Room: Looking for Agency in a World Packed with Archaeological Things

Posthumanist approaches in archaeology have given plenty of focus to things in the last decade. This focus on things is a reaction to the over-anthropocentric view of social life advanced by postprocessual archaeologists. Whereas agency of more than 10 years ago was about how individuals expressed purpose and identity, agency today is about how both humans and non-human objects affect one another in a symmetrical manner. It seems without doubt that Posthumanism has contributed greatly to new understandings of social reality, but in the process it has also forced archaeologists to sacrifice many topics of interest, namely those involving consciousness and purpose. But is this sacrifice really necessary? This is one of the central problems of Posthumanism: it disallows a compromise of ideas from more conventional social theory (e.g. norms, purpose, practice) with those of posthumanist theory. This paper revisits John Searle's ‘Chinese Room’ and reiterates what this thought-experiment meant to understanding consciousness and purpose. The thought-experiment highlighted the differences between humans and machines and demonstrated that, even if a machine could replicate human purpose, it would still not be considered human because, unlike mechanical processes, human purpose is based on ethics. The thought-experiment was the first step in debunking the computational theory of mind. In light of this thought-experiment, the paper argues that, in a world where things interact with humans, we should think of agency in terms of ethics and keep the focus on humans.

Artificial Intelligence: A Child’s Play

We discuss the objectives of any endeavor in creating artificial intelligence, AI, and provide a possible alternative. Intelligence might be an unintended consequence of curiosity left to roam free, best exemplified by a frolicking infant. This suggests that our attempts at AI could have been misguided. What we actually need to strive for can be termed artificial curiosity, AC, and intelligence happens as a consequence of those efforts. For this unintentional yet welcome aftereffect to set in a foundational list of guiding principles needs to be present. We start with the intuition for this line of reasoning and formalize it with a series of definitions, assumptions, ingredients, models and iterative improvements that will be necessary to make the incubation of intelligence a reality. Our discussion provides conceptual modifications to the Turing Test and to Searle’s Chinese room argument. We discuss the future implications for society as AI becomes an integral part of life.We provide a road-map for creating intelligence with the technical parts relegated to the appendix so that the article is accessible to a wide audience. The central techniques in our formal approach to creating intelligence draw upon tools and concepts widely used in physics, cognitive science, psychology, evolutionary biology, statistics, linguistics, communication systems, pattern recognition, marketing, economics, finance, information science and computational theory highlighting that solutions for creating artificial intelligence have to transcend the artificial barriers between various fields and be highly multi-disciplinary.

Buddha in the Chinese Room: Empty Persons, Other Mindstreams, and the Strong AI Debate

Buddha in the Chinese Room: Empty Persons, Other Mindstreams, and the Strong AI Debate

Structure and Functions of a Replicative Neuro-like Module

The given work describes a technology of construction of neural network system of artificial intellect (AI) at a junction of declarative programming and machine training on the basis of modelling of cortical columns. Evolutionary mechanisms, using available material and relatively simple phenomena, have created complex intelligent systems. From this, the authors conclude that AI should also be based on simple but scalable and biofeasible algorithms, in which the stochastic dynamics of cortical neural modules allow to find solutions to of complex problems quickly and efficiently.. Purpose: Algorithmic formalization at the level of replicative neural network complexes - neocortex columns of the brain. Methods: The basic AI module is presented as a specialization and formalization of the concept "Chinese room" introduced by John Earle. The results of experiments on forecasting binary sequences are presented. The computer simulation experiments have shown high efficiency in implementing the proposed algorithms. At the same time, instead of using for each task a carefully selected and adapted separate method with partially equivalent restatement of tasks, the standard unified approach and unified algorithm parameters were used. It is concluded that the results of the experiments show the possibility of effective applied solutions based on the proposed technology. Practical value: the presented technology allows creating self-learning and planning systems.

The State Space of Artificial Intelligence

The goal of the paper is to develop and propose a general model of the state space of AI. Given the breathtaking progress in AI research and technologies in recent years, such conceptual work is of substantial theoretical interest. The present AI hype is mainly driven by the triumph of deep learning neural networks. As the distinguishing feature of such networks is the ability to self-learn, self-learning is identified as one important dimension of the AI state space. Another dimension is recognized as generalization, the possibility to go over from specific to more general types of problems. A third dimension is semantic grounding. Our overall analysis connects to a number of known foundational issues in the philosophy of mind and cognition: the blockhead objection, the Turing test, the symbol grounding problem, the Chinese room argument, and use theories of meaning. It shall finally be argued that the dimension of grounding decomposes into three sub-dimensions. And the dimension of self-learning turns out as only one of a whole range of “self-x-capacities” (based on ideas of organic computing) that span the self-x-subspace of the full AI state space.

The Chinese Room Argument in the Context of the Rational Action Theory

espanolEl articulo describe un conocido experimento mental de J. Searle llamado la Sala China dirigida contra las teorias de la inteligencia artificial fuerte en el contexto de una larga polemica tras la publicacion del articulo de Searle, asi como su libro posterior Racionalidad en (2001). Su separacion radical en el marco de su experimento mental sugerido fue la mas criticada ya que se observo una simplificacion que no cumplia con las teorias reales de la inteligencia artificial. El libro de Searle publicado en 2001 deja en claro que el filosofo significa ante todo la diferencia dentro de la semantica misma: conectada principalmente con la accion y la sintaxis. EnglishThe article describes a well-known thought experiment of J. Searle called the Chinese Room directed against theories of strong artificial intelligence in the context of longstanding polemic following the publication of Searle's paper as well as his later book Rationality in Action (2001). Their radical separation in the framework of his suggested thought experiment was criticized the most as there was seen simplification which did not comply with real theories of artificial intelligence. Searle’s book published in 2001 makes it clear that the philosopher means first of all the difference within the semantics itself: connected mainly with action and syntax.

Simulation vs. Understanding: A Tension, in Quantum Chemistry and Beyond. Part B. The March of Simulation, for Better or Worse

AbstractIn the second part of this Essay, we leave philosophy, and begin by describing Roald's being trashed by simulation. This leads us to a general sketch of artificial intelligence (AI), Searle's Chinese room, and Strevens’ account of what a go‐playing program knows. Back to our terrain—we ask “Quantum Chemistry, † ca. 2020?” Then we move to examples of Big Data, machine learning and neural networks in action, first in chemistry and then affecting social matters, trivial to scary. We argue that moral decisions are hardly to be left to a computer. And that posited causes, even if recognized as provisional, represent a much deeper level of understanding than correlations. At this point, we try to pull the reader up, giving voice to the opposing view of an optimistic, limitless future. But we don't do justice to that view—how could we, older mammals on the way to extinction that we are? We try. But then we return to fuss, questioning the ascetic dimension of scientists, their romance with black boxes. And argue for a science of many tongues.

Simulation vs. Understanding: A Tension, in Quantum Chemistry and Beyond. Part A. Stage Setting.

We begin our tripartite Essay with a triangle of understanding, theory and simulation. Sketching the intimate tie between explanation and teaching, we also point to the emotional impact of understanding. As we trace the development of theory in chemistry, Dirac's characterization of what is known and what is needed for theoretical chemistry comes up, as does the role of prediction, and Thom's phrase "To predict is not to explain." We give a typology of models, and then describe, no doubt inadequately, machine learning and neural networks. In the second part, we leave philosophy, beginning by describing Roald's being beaten by simulation. This leads us to artificial intelligence (AI), Searle's Chinese room, and Strevens' account of what a go-playing program knows. Back to our terrain-we ask "Quantum Chemistry, † ca. 2020?" Then move to examples of AI affecting social matters, ranging from trivial to scary. We argue that moral decisions are hardly to be left to a computer. At this point, we try to pull the reader up, giving the opposing view of an optimistic, limitless future a voice. But we don't do justice to that view-how could we? We return to questioning the ascetic dimension of scientists, their romance with black boxes. Onward: In the 3rd part of this Essay, we work our way up from pessimism. We trace (another triangle!) the special interests of experimentalists, who want the theory we love, and reliable numbers as well. We detail in our own science instances where theory gave us real joy. Two more examples-on magnetic coupling in inorganic diradicals, and the way to think about alkali metal halides, show us the way to integrate simulation with theory. Back and forth is how it should be-between painfully-obtained, intriguing numbers, begging for interpretation, in turn requiring new concepts, new models, new theoretically grounded tools of computation. Through such iterations understanding is formed. As our tripartite Essay ends, we outline a future of consilience, with a role both for fact-seekers, and searchers for understanding. Chemistry's streak of creation provides in that conjoined future a passage to art and to perceiving, as we argue we must, the sacred in science.

Simulation vs. Understanding: A Tension, in Quantum Chemistry and Beyond. Part A. Stage Setting

AbstractWe begin our tripartite Essay with a triangle of understanding, theory and simulation. Sketching the intimate tie between explanation and teaching, we also point to the emotional impact of understanding. As we trace the development of theory in chemistry, Dirac's characterization of what is known and what is needed for theoretical chemistry comes up, as does the role of prediction, and Thom's phrase “To predict is not to explain.” We give a typology of models, and then describe, no doubt inadequately, machine learning and neural networks. In the second part, we leave philosophy, beginning by describing Roald's being beaten by simulation. This leads us to artificial intelligence (AI), Searle's Chinese room, and Strevens’ account of what a go‐playing program knows. Back to our terrain—we ask “Quantum Chemistry, † ca. 2020?” Then move to examples of AI affecting social matters, ranging from trivial to scary. We argue that moral decisions are hardly to be left to a computer. At this point, we try to pull the reader up, giving the opposing view of an optimistic, limitless future a voice. But we don't do justice to that view—how could we? We return to questioning the ascetic dimension of scientists, their romance with black boxes. Onward: In the 3rd part of this Essay, we work our way up from pessimism. We trace (another triangle!) the special interests of experimentalists, who want the theory we love, and reliable numbers as well. We detail in our own science instances where theory gave us real joy. Two more examples‐on magnetic coupling in inorganic diradicals, and the way to think about alkali metal halides, show us the way to integrate simulation with theory. Back and forth is how it should be—between painfully‐obtained, intriguing numbers, begging for interpretation, in turn requiring new concepts, new models, new theoretically grounded tools of computation. Through such iterations understanding is formed. As our tripartite Essay ends, we outline a future of consilience, with a role both for fact‐seekers, and searchers for understanding. Chemistry's streak of creation provides in that conjoined future a passage to art and to perceiving, as we argue we must, the sacred in science.

A Mathematical Tightening of Instantaneous Indoor and Outdoor Dry-Bulb and Wet-Bulb Temperature Tolerances

To reduce the inaccuracy in energy efficiency evaluation, indoor and outdoor dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperature (D&WBT) tolerances in the currently enacted Chinese room air conditioner (RAC) national standard were tightened into narrower intervals in this investigation. Characteristics of cooling capacity (CC) and energy efficiency ratio (EER) changing with D&WBTs were analyzed based on performance tests. AICc (corrected Akaike Information Criterion) was applied to determine the best fitted 3D curve equations of CC and EER to find the intervals of gradient extrema of CC and EER. The corresponding intervals of indoor and outdoor D&WBTs were concluded as the tightened D&WBT tolerances. For illustration, based on the performance tests of 154 working conditions, the instantaneous indoor and outdoor D&WBT tolerances in nominal refrigerating working conditions were respectively tightened from the original ±0.5/±0.3 °C into ±0.3/±0.2 °C (indoor tolerances) and ±0.4/±0.3 °C (outdoor tolerances). EER variation rate thus decreased from 2.11% to 1.03% (indoor) and 2.11% to 1.25% (outdoor).

Performing walking sims: From Dear Esther to Inchcolm Project

In 2012 The Chinese Room launched Dear Esther, a video game that would go on to shape video game history and define a new genre: the walking simulator. Walking simulators renounce traditional game tropes and foreground walking as an aesthetic and as a dramaturgical practice, which engages the walker/player in critical acts of reading, challenging and/or performing a landscape. In October 2016, Dear Esther was adapted as a site-responsive, promenade performance set on the Scottish island of Inchcolm in the Firth of Forth. The resulting performance, Dear Rachel, was then experienced alongside the game under the umbrella name Inchcolm Project. This hybrid event – multimedia (promenade performance, gameplay and musical performance) and mixed-reality (with physical, augmented and virtual components) – required the development and implementation of complex processes of remediation and adaptation. Drawing from a range of theories and practitioner reflection, this article puts forward a design framework – storywalking – which reconciled the two adaptation challenges: responding to the site and to the game.

A Quantum Computer in a 'Chinese Room'

Pattern recognition is represented as the limit, to which an infinite Turing process converges. A Turing machine, in which the bits are substituted with qubits, is introduced. That quantum Turing machine can recognize two complementary patterns in any data. That ability of universal pattern recognition is interpreted as an intellect featuring any quantum computer. The property is valid only within a quantum computer: To utilize it, the observer should be sited inside it. Being outside it, the observer would obtain quite different result depending on the degree of the entanglement of the quantum computer and observer. All extraordinary properties of a quantum computer are due to involving a converging infinite computational process contenting necessarily both a continuous advancing calculation and a leap to the limit. Three types of quantum computation can be distinguished according to whether the series is a finite one, an infinite rational or irrational number.

Questioning the implied autonomy of machine state in Putnam's computational hypothesis of the mind

What appears as the main issue of debate between Putnam’s computational hypothesis and Searle’sChinese room experiment is whether or not machine state is sufficient to account for the nature of humanmental state. Putnam argues that the nature of machine states is synonymous to the nature of the mentalstates. For him, it follows that an understanding of the nature of Machine states is adequate to understandingthe nature of the mental states. Searle’s challenge against Putnam’s computational hypothesis isanchored upon the popular Chinese Room Experiment. The experiment shows that it is possible to satisfyPutnam’s requirements for having a particular mental state without actually having the mental states inquestion, although Boden to the contrary. However, the debate is built upon an implied autonomy ofmachine state. That is, it is assumed that machine state has an independent existence from the mentalstate. Correspondingly, it is argued that for machine state to be used as an analogy in understanding thenature of mental state, it must be autonomous to mental state. The question which is being engaged inthis paper is whether machine state is actually autonomous. For instance, how much can we understandby using the nature of the (mechanical) state of a wrist watch to study the nature of the mental state of thewatch maker? The paper maintains that this autonomy of machine states from mental state is questionable.This is because, (1) There is yet no self-created/programmed computer machine, (2) Machine stateis created or designed by human mental states and, (3) Only the nature of an autonomous entity couldsufficiently be used to study the nature of another autonomous entity. The paper further argues that ifan extreme position of the computational functionalism is maintained, then it raises more challengingquestions and leads to more complicated problems. The paper, therefore, concludes that the view thatintends to use the nature of machine state to study the nature of mental state is circular and the view thatequates machine state with mental state is trivial.Key words: Chinese room, Computational Hypothesis, autonomy, Symbols and Codes, Computermachine, Machine table.

Критика «Китайской комнаты» Дж. Сёрла с позиции гибридной модели построения искусственных когнитивных агентов

The article presents a review of the phenomenon of understanding the meaning of the natural language and, more broadly, the meaning of the situation in which the cognitive agent is located, considering the context. A specific definition of understanding is given, which is at the intersection of neurophysiology, information theory and cybernetics. The scheme of an abstract architecture of the cognitive agent (of arbitrary nature) is offered, which states that an agent with such architecture can understand in the sense described in the paper. It also provides a critique of J. Searle’s mental experiment “The Chinese Room” from the point of view of the construction of artificial cognitive agents within a hybrid paradigm of artificial intelligence. The novelty of the presented work is based on the application of the author’s methodological approach to the construction of artificial cognitive agents. It not only considers the perception of external stimuli from the environment, but also the philosophical problem of “understanding” by the artificial cognitive agent of its sensory inputs. The relevance of the work follows from the renewed interest of the scientific community in the theme of Strong Artificial Intelligence (or AGI). The author's contribution consists in comprehensive treatment from different points of view of the theme of understanding perceived by artificial cognitive agents. It involves the formation of prerequisites for the development of new models and the theory of understanding within the framework of artificial intelligence, which in the future will help to build a holistic theory of the nature of human mind. The article will be interesting for specialists working in the field of artificial intellectual systems and cognitive agents construction, as well as for scientists from other scientific fields – first of all, philosophy, neurophysiology and psychology.

Életünk a Kínai Szobában I.

Míg a múlt század végén az információtechnológiai kutatások lényegében optimista, építő munkát jelentettek, és az úttörő kutatók számára egy alapvetően pozitív cyberjövő képe sejlett fel, ahol a technológia elsősorban az információ- és tudáshozzáférést segíti, addig a 21. század embere számára Searle „Kínai Szoba” argumentuma lassan oly módon lesz a mindennapok valósága, hogy a bennünket körülvevő cybervilágban elveszítjük a kontrollt a bemenet és/vagy a kimenet vagy az információ, a tartalom, sőt, néha éppen a saját privát szféránk felett.
 Jelen tanulmány első fele a gyűlölet különböző formáinak online térben való megjelenését elemzi. A szerző a koreai popzene világában történt „Jung Joon-yung-botrány” esetén keresztül tárgyalja a virtuális megszégyenítés (online shaming) néhány formáját a virtuális kukkolástól (cyber-stalking) a titokban készített pornográf felvételek (nonconsensual pornography) megosztásán át a nyílt online gyalázkodásig (cyber-pillory). A dolgozat második része a baudrillard-i szimulakrum-fogalom segítségével a virtuális szerelem egyes megnyilvánulási formáit elemzi a koreai sztárok elvadult rajongóinak (sasaeng) esetétől a robotok és más képzetes hősök iránt érzett szerelemig. A virtuális valóság nem pusztán egyszerűbbé teszi a különböző emberi érzelmek kifejezését azáltal, hogy a valós kommunikációt körülményessé tevő tényezők egy részétől, például az önreflexiótól megszabadulunk, ám egyúttal le is egyszerűsíti mondanivalónkat („nem tetszik” – „imádom”), s ezzel tulajdonképpen magára a gondolkodásunkra is visszahat. Más emberré válunk azáltal, hogy olyan dolgokat is megteszünk a virtuális térben, amit a valóságban nem tennénk. A szimulakrum problémája a „Nem vagyok robot”, az „Ember vagy te is?” és a „W” című koreai sorozatokon keresztül kerül bemutatásra, s az elemzés végén az emberi tudat digitálisan örökéletűvé tételének etikai problémáiról is szó esik.

A Fair Version of the Chinese Room

By the Chinese room thought experiment, John Searle (1980) advocates the thesis that it is impossible for computers to think in the same way that human beings do. This article intends firstly to show that the Chinese room does not justify or even test this thesis and secondly to describe exactly how the person in the Chinese room can learn Chinese. Regarding this learning process, Searle ignores the relevance of an individual’s pattern recognition capacity for understanding. To counter Searle’s claim, this paper, via examining a series of thought experiments inspired by the Chinese room, aims to underline the importance of pattern recognition for understanding to emerge.

Chinese Reading Rooms, Print Culture, and Overseas Chinese Nationalism in Colonial Singapore and Malaya

While recent research has given deeper understanding of libraries, the print culture ofo the English-speaking residents of colonial Singapore and Malaya, the majority, non-English-speaking population, has been largely neglected. To give a more complete and nuanced understanding of the role that libraries and reading and writing cultures played in colonial Singapore and Malaya, this paper will situate the three aspects among the overseas Chinese community in pre-war Singapore and Malaya. It will demonstrate that Chinese reading rooms, along with Chinese print culture, had a major role in shaping overseas Chinese nationalism in colonial Singapore and Malaya. They were important avenues for the Kuomintang to propagate ideologies that helped fostered an imagined community: a sense of nationhood among the overseas Chinese in Singapore and Malaya, whose loyalty lay with China and not the British. This was unacceptable to the British, who responded with surveillance, suppression, and censorship to contain the threat to their rule.

‘You Were all the World Like a Beach to me’. The Use of Second Person Address to Create Multiple Storyworlds in Literary Video Games: ‘Dear Esther’, a Case Study.

This paper focuses on the problematic overlapping uses of ‘you’ within the video game Dear Esther (The Chinese Room, 2012) and how this gives rise to an uneasy and personalised experience rather than a fixed canonical reading. Dear Esther is a Walking Simulator and this type of video game is concerned with telling a story and not the conventional binary win or lose outcome of many other video games. The simple game mechanics reliant upon the player moving around a simulated space in order to learn the story means that a literary analysis is better suited to understanding the transmedia story worlds. Literary fiction uses multiple varieties of second person address to create story worlds, Walking Simulators encourage players to actively identify themselves not with but as the main story protagonist, and the use of second person address largely drives this identification.

Can the Machine Understand: An Evidence Based Approach to the Chinese Room

The debate of a thinking machine continues on, especially in an era where machines are achieving tasks that we never thought possible. In this essay, I explore one of the most famous critiques of the thinking machine, Searle’s Chinese room, by breaking down his argument into two claims of varying scope. I then offer an alternative method to assess this argument, by employing a top down approach in contrast to Searles which seems to advance from the conclusion. I explore the current thinking on how the human brain may come to understand the world, as well as some of the aspects of these semantics. This is all in an effort to elucidate some the features necessary for machine understanding and to accurately assess whether a machine possesses them. I conclude that Searle may have been too quick to judge the abilities of computers, and that a claim that any digital computer cannot understand is much too strong.

Islands of Mind and Matter: Challenging Dualism in J. G. Ballard's ‘The Terminal Beach’ and The Chinese Room'sDear Esther

Ideas enter our mind, a realisation can dawn on us, and we should let bad news sink in. This article argues that experimental narrative can destabilise this widespread tendency to describe mental processes through spatial metaphors. My case studies are J. G. Ballard's short story ‘The Terminal Beach’ (1964) and Dear Esther (2012), an arthouse video game developed by The Chinese Room. These narratives develop and literalise metaphors for mind by foregrounding the continuity between the physical space of the setting (an island) and the protagonists’ existential predicament. Going beyond a dualistic reading of the ‘mind as space’ metaphor, these texts construct spaces that are more than a symbol for the characters’ mental processes: narrative space is causally linked to mind in neurophysiological terms (in Ballard's short story), or extends the protagonist's emotional meaning-making (in Dear Esther). This set-up is unsettling, I contend, because it raises deep questions about the relationship between subjective experience and material realities. By exploring these narratives and their ramifications, the article seeks to open a conversation between the cognitive humanities and the ‘nonhuman turn’ in contemporary literary studies.