Minds, Brains, and Programs

The Chinese Room paper — ten pages that generated four decades of debate about whether machines can think. Searle's thought experiment argues that syntax is not sufficient for semantics: a system can manipulate symbols according to formal rules and produce correct outputs without understanding anything. The paper was a direct challenge to strong AI and provoked responses from Dennett, the Churchlands, Hofstadter, and nearly every philosopher of mind since. With large language models producing fluent text that passes many behavioural tests, the Chinese Room argument is being relitigated in real time. Freely available online, it remains the single most important philosophical provocation in the field.