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 often think we know more than we really do—but what is knowledge, exactly? In this episode of The Thursday Thought Experiment, we explore the classical definition of knowledge as “justified true belief,” and why it isn’t enough. From lottery guesses to Gettier’s famous counterexamples, we’ll see how true, justified beliefs can still fail to count as knowledge. Along the way, we’ll look at reliabilism, safety theory, and the challenge of separating lucky guesses from genuine understanding. ...
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.
