Can a mind be “just” a computer? In this episode, we unpack John Searle’s Chinese Room and the debate it ignited about understanding, meaning, and consciousness. We lay out Searle’s thought experiment in plain language, explore why it challenges the idea that syntax alone yields semantics, and walk through some leading replies.
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Can a mind be “just” a computer? In this episode, we unpack John Searle’s Chinese Room and the debate it ignited about understanding, meaning, and consciousness. We lay out Searle’s thought experiment in plain language, explore why it challenges the idea that syntax alone yields semantics, and walk through some leading replies.
We drop a glass, it shatters. A ball hits a window, it breaks. Simple cause and effect—right? Well, not quite. In this episode, we dive into the philosophy of causation, exploring why our everyday intuitions about what “causes” what start to fall apart under closer scrutiny. From counterfactual “what if” scenarios to tricky cases like late pre-emption and even causation by absence, we’ll see why philosophers are still debating what it really means to call something a cause. Along the way, we’...
The Thursday Thought Experiment.
Can a mind be “just” a computer? In this episode, we unpack John Searle’s Chinese Room and the debate it ignited about understanding, meaning, and consciousness. We lay out Searle’s thought experiment in plain language, explore why it challenges the idea that syntax alone yields semantics, and walk through some leading replies.
