I agree on the basic point, but then my deeper point was that somewhere down the line you’ll find the intelligence(s) that created a high-fidelity converter for an arbitrary amount of information from one format to another. Sarle is free to claim that the system does not understand Chinese, but its very function could only have been imparted by parties who collectively speak Chinese very well, making the room at very least a medium of communication utilizing this understanding.
And this is before we mention the entirely plausible claim that the room-person system as a whole understands Chinese, even though neither of its two parts does. Any system you’ll take apart to sufficient degrees will stop displaying the properties of the whole, so having us peer inside an electronic brain asking “but where does the intelligence/understanding reside?” misses the point entirely.
I agree on the basic point, but then my deeper point was that somewhere down the line you’ll find the intelligence(s) that created a high-fidelity converter for an arbitrary amount of information from one format to another. Sarle is free to claim that the system does not understand Chinese, but its very function could only have been imparted by parties who collectively speak Chinese very well, making the room at very least a medium of communication utilizing this understanding.
And this is before we mention the entirely plausible claim that the room-person system as a whole understands Chinese, even though neither of its two parts does. Any system you’ll take apart to sufficient degrees will stop displaying the properties of the whole, so having us peer inside an electronic brain asking “but where does the intelligence/understanding reside?” misses the point entirely.