Programmer Humor

19187 readers

1139 users here now

Welcome to Programmer Humor!

This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!

For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.

Rules

Keep content in english
No advertisements
Posts must be related to programming or programmer topics

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

874

There once was a programmer (feddit.de)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

132 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The Chinese room thought experiment doesn't prove anything and probably confuses the discussion more than it clarifies.

In order for the Chinese room to convince an outside observer of knowing Chinese like a person the room as a whole basically needs to be sentient and understand Chinese. The person in the room doesn't need to understand Chinese. "The room" understands Chinese.

The confounding part is the book, pen and paper. It suggests that the room is "dumb". But to behave like a person the person-not-knowing-Chinese plus book and paper needs to be able to memorize and reason about very complex concepts. You can do that with pen and paper and not-understanding-Chinese person it just takes an awful amount of time and complex set of continuously changing rules in said book.

Edit: Dall-E made a pretty neat mood illustration