The booth of the clairvoyant Jun was one of the most popular in Beijing. What made Jun stand out was not the accuracy of her observations, but the fact that she was deaf and mute. She would insist on sitting behind a screen and communicating by scribbled notes, passed through a curtain.
Jun was attracting the customers of a rival, Shing, who became convinced that Jun’s deafness and muteness were affectations, designed to make her stand out from the crowd. So one day, he paid her a visit, in order to expose her.
After a few routine questions, Shing started to challenge Jun’s inability to talk. Jun showed no signs of being disturbed by this. Her replies came at the same speed, the handwriting remained the same. In the end, a frustrated Shing tore the curtain down and pushed the barrier aside. And there he saw, not Jun, but a man he would later find out was called John, sitting in front of a computer, typing in the last message he had passed through. Shing screamed at the man to explain himself.
‘Don’t hassle me, dude,’ replied John. ‘I don’t understand a word you’re saying. No speak Chinese, comprende?’
Source: Chapter 2 of Minds, Brains and Science by John Searle (British Broadcasting Corporation, 1984)
Visitors to Jun/John’s clairvoyant booth may or may not be convinced that the person inside can see the future, is really deaf and mute, or is even a woman, but everyone would surely be convinced that whoever was in there understood Chinese. Chinese messages are passed in and meaningful answers are passed back. What clearer sign could there be that the writer of the messages understood the language they were written in?
Such thoughts lay behind the emergence of a theory of mind known as functionalism in the 1950s. To have a mind was not, on this view, a matter of having a certain kind of biological organ, such as a brain, but to be able to perform the functions of minds, such as understanding, judging and communicating.
The plausibility of this account is severely diminished, however, by the story of John and Jun. Here, instead of consciousness or mind in general, one particular function of mind is under scrutiny: understanding a language. Jun’s clairvoyant booth functions as though there were someone in it who understands Chinese.
Therefore, according to the functionalist, we should say that understanding of Chinese is going on. But, as Shing discovered, in fact there is no understanding of Chinese at all. The conclusion then seems to be that functionalism is wrong: it is not enough to perform the functions of a mind to have a mind.
It might be objected that, although John doesn’t understand Chinese, his computer must do. However, imagine that instead of a computer, John works with a complex instruction manual, of which he is now a quick user due to his long experience. This manual simply tells him which replies to write out in response to the comments that come in. The result from the point of view of the person behind the screen would be the same, yet obviously there is no understanding of Chinese going on in this case. And arguably, since the computer merely processes symbols according to rules, the computer, like John with his manual, does not understand anything either.
If it is no use zooming in on the computer to locate understanding, it seems even more futile to zoom out to the whole system of booth, John and computer, and say that as a whole it understands Chinese. This isn’t quite as crazy as it sounds. After all, I understand English, but I’m not sure it makes sense to say that my neurons, tongue or ears understand English. But the booth, John and the computer do not form the same kind of closely integrated whole as a person, and so the idea that by putting the three together you get understanding seems unpersuasive.
That, however, leaves us with a problem. For if it is not enough to function like a mind to have a mind, what more is required, and how can we know whether computers – or other people – have minds?
See also
| 3. | The Indian and the ice |
| 19. | Bursting the soap bubble |
| 68. | Mad pain |
| 93. | Zombies |