Editing Chinese room (section)

==== Virtual mind reply ====
[[Marvin Minsky]] suggested a version of the system reply known as the "virtual mind reply".{{efn|The virtual mind reply is held by Minsky, {{sfn|Minsky|1980|p=440}}{{sfn|Cole|2004|p=7}} [[Tim Maudlin]], [[David Chalmers]] and David Cole.{{sfn|Cole|2004|pp=7–9}}}} The term "[[virtual artifact|virtual]]" is used in computer science to describe an object that appears to exist "in" a computer (or computer network) only because software makes it appear to exist. The objects "inside" computers (including files, folders, and so on) are all "virtual", except for the computer's electronic components. Similarly, Minsky that a computer may contain a "mind" that is virtual in the same sense as [[virtual machine]]s, [[virtual communities]] and [[virtual reality]].

To clarify the distinction between the simple systems reply given above and virtual mind reply, David Cole notes that two simulations could be running on one system at the same time: one speaking Chinese and one speaking Korean. While there is only one system, there can be multiple "virtual minds," thus the "system" cannot be the "mind".{{sfn|Cole|2004|p=8}}

Searle responds that such a mind is at best a simulation, and writes: "No one supposes that computer simulations of a five-alarm fire will burn the neighborhood down or that a computer simulation of a rainstorm will leave us all drenched."{{sfn|Searle|1980|p=12}} Nicholas Fearn responds that, for some things, simulation is as good as the real thing. "When we call up the pocket calculator function on a desktop computer, the image of a pocket calculator appears on the screen. We don't complain that it isn't really a calculator, because the physical attributes of the device do not matter."{{sfn|Fearn|2007|p=47}} The question is, is the human mind like the pocket calculator, essentially composed of information, where a perfect simulation of the thing just <em>is</em> the thing? Or is the mind like the rainstorm, a thing in the world that is more than just its simulation, and not realizable in full by a computer simulation? For decades, this question of simulation has led AI researchers and philosophers to consider whether the term "[[synthetic intelligence]]" is more appropriate than the common description of such intelligences as "artificial."

These replies provide an explanation of exactly who it is that understands Chinese. If there is something ''besides'' the man in the room that can understand Chinese, Searle cannot argue that (1) the man does not understand Chinese, therefore (2) nothing in the room understands Chinese. This, according to those who make this reply, shows that Searle's argument fails to prove that "strong AI" is false.{{efn|David Cole writes "From the intuition that in the CR thought experiment he would not understand Chinese by running a program, Searle infers that there is no understanding created by running a program. Clearly, whether that inference is valid or not turns on a metaphysical question about the identity of persons and minds. If the person understanding is not identical with the room operator, then the inference is unsound."{{sfn|Cole|2004|p=21}}}}

These replies, by themselves, do not provide any evidence that strong AI is true, however. They do not show that the system (or the virtual mind) understands Chinese, other than the hypothetical premise that it passes the Turing test. Searle argues that, if we are to consider Strong AI remotely plausible, the Chinese Room is an example that requires explanation, and it is difficult or impossible to explain how consciousness might "emerge" from the room or how the system would have consciousness. As Searle writes "the systems reply simply begs the question by insisting that the system must understand Chinese"{{sfn|Searle|1980|p=6}} and thus is dodging the question or hopelessly circular.