I. It ain't the meat, it's the motion
Richard Sharvy · Inquiry · 1983
John R. Searle has recently observed that something might instantiate a Chinese‐‘understanding’ computer program without having any understanding of Chinese. He thinks that this implies that instantiating such a program is ‘never by itself a sufficient condition of intentionality’. I show that this phrase is incoherent, and that all that follows is that instantiating such a program is not in every case a sufficient condition for the given intentionality. But the conclusion to Searle's argument, thus revised, is neither new nor significant; Searle's arguments merely raise old issues in new clothing.