alt Hacker News>Secondly, it has been debunked for almost half a century at this point by Searle’s Chinese room thought experiment.
Searles thought experiment is stupid and debunked nothing. What neuron, cell, atom of your brain understands English ? That's right. You can't answer that anymore than you can answer the subject of Searles proposition, ergo the brain is a Chinese room. If you conclude that you understand English, then the Chinese room understands Chinese.
You are referring to the systems reply:
> Searle’s response to the Systems Reply is simple: in principle, he could internalize the entire system, memorizing all the instructions and the database, and doing all the calculations in his head. He could then leave the room and wander outdoors, perhaps even conversing in Chinese. But he still would have no way to attach “any meaning to the formal symbols”. The man would now be the entire system, yet he still would not understand Chinese. For example, he would not know the meaning of the Chinese word for hamburger. He still cannot get semantics from syntax.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/#SystRepl