The Chinese Room Argument
The “Chinese Room” argument is a thought experiment from 1980 by philosopher John Searle intended as a refutation of the Turing Test—that famous test in which a machine proves their intelligence by pretending to be human (Alan Turing’s “imitation game” was originally, and curiously enough, a game in which a woman and man compete in imitating a woman). The scene of the Chinese Room is that a person illiterate in Chinese letters is alone in a room and given questions written in Chinese that he must then translate using available instructions and, once answered, submit as output. This will create the illusion for those reading the output outside the room, that he is fluent in Chinese when in fact he remains ignorant of any and all sense, and is merely arranging syntax. This experiment has been in vogue recently to illustrate how the large language models of nascent AI, like Chat GPT, while appearing articulate and knowledgeable and producing an eerie sense of subjectivity, are actually devoid of comprehension and lacking (in Searle’s term) intentionality. This is all well and good and I have no doubt that AI is a mindless zombie coming for your job, but what interests me about this thought experiment is not its indictment of the machine, but rather an uncertainty that is cast back upon human intention—namely, me, my own. Do I really know the full intent of what I am saying at any given moment?
Let us revise the argument. I am alone in a room (that is my own head). I have received input, since I was a child, of a language whose familiarity (to me) only obscures the alien movement of its giant structures that are far older and larger than I am able to comprehend—trapped as I am inside this room. The alien movement of this symbolic order animates me (from without) and I produce, to the best of my limited ability, an output of speech, essays and blog posts regarding, for example, the topic of mysticism. To those outside of the room it may appear—one can only hope—that I possess both sense and intention. And yet how can anyone (especially myself) ever really be sure? From this viewpoint ego-consciousness itself becomes a kind of mindlessness.
We may attribute the uncertainty of my intention to three related variables.
1. My Ignorance. I really do not understand what it is I am trying to say. Much of this ignorance is due to the inherent biases of race/class/sex.
2. Symbolic Excess. Language always possesses more sense than the mind who thinks it.
3. The Unconscious. An invisible force from inside of me (of which I remain totally unaware) shapes the language that I deploy, as sand dunes are shaped by the sea-wind.
Is it possible to say then that I am not the writer of this essay?
Of course, there are many ways to convince the reader that an essay has both sense and intention. Humor, though difficult to achieve, is very compelling. A feminine style, in the end, may be the best guarantee of spirit.
The 23rd chapter of the Tao Te Ching
The following is a translation by Stephan Mitchell
Express yourself completely,
then keep quiet.
Be like the forces of nature:
when it blows, there is only wind;
when it rains, there is only rain;
when the clouds pass, the sun shines through.
If you open yourself to the Tao,
you are at one with the Tao
and you can embody it completely.
If you open yourself to insight,
you are at one with insight
and you can use it completely.
If you open yourself to loss,
you are at one with loss
and you can accept it completely.
Open yourself to the Tao,
then trust your natural responses;
and everything will fall into place.
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