Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderThe Chinese Room Argument is everything that is wrong with analytical philosophy. The fact that it keeps popping up is depressing. Of course the man in the room doesn't know Chinese, neither does your individual neurons. It's the entire house that's the conscious part if anything. The real answer of course is we don't know.
I have a lot of strong thoughts and feelings when I think deeply about this experiment. But one thing bugs me just about the way it's posed. You're told to just assume you've got a functional database of Chinese symbols; maybe it's just a big shelf of old dusty boxes with helpful headings. And you should just assume you've got this book of instructions; maybe it's so big you need a stepladder to read its big pages. But it is…
Seriously, why won't this 2+ decade old argument die? It's sophomoric and picked apart in second year cognitive systems classes by 19 year old children. It glaringly misunderstands and misrepresents. If people are genuinely interested in AI they should take a basic course in it at university or pick up a real book on the subject.
> "by following the program for manipulating symbols and numerals just as a computer does, he sends appropriate strings of Chinese characters back out under the door, and this leads those outside to mistakenly suppose there is a Chinese speaker in the room." Clearly there is actually a Chinese speaker in the room. It's the system (computer) implemented by the program. I'm with the "system" critics here. Searle's argument is Reductio ad absurdum which doesn't work on readers who don't…
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 111
- Total comments
- 172
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-02-20 | The Chinese Room Argument | fiaz | 24 | 44 |
| 2012-10-08 | Is true artificial intelligence impossible? | patothon | 1 | 2 |
| 2016-01-08 | The Chinese Room ArgumentFirst breakout · Best thread | danso | 33 | 58 |
| 2019-02-03 | The Chinese Room ArgumentLatest 20+ point return | headalgorithm | 29 | 63 |
| 2022-04-07 | The Chinese Room Argument | mhb | 1 | 0 |
| 2022-06-20 | The Chinese Room Argument | romaintailhurat | 3 | 0 |
| 2022-12-17 | The Chinese Room Argument | omnibrain | 1 | 0 |
| 2023-01-15 | The Chinese Room Argument (rev. 2020) | eternalban | 2 | 0 |
| 2023-01-18 | The Chinese Room Argument | jonbaer | 8 | 5 |
| 2023-06-09 | Searle's Chinese Room Argument | jnand | 1 | 0 |
| 2024-04-17 | The Chinese Room Argument | louislang | 3 | 0 |
| 2024-10-31 | The Chinese Room Argument | hackandthink | 2 | 0 |
| 2026-03-02 | The Chinese Room Argument | 1659447091 | 3 | 0 |