Closing of the Chinese Room
Student:
Professor, is the Chinese Room open?
Prof. Searly:
Move on, buddy! It is closed.
Student:
Excuse me? Professor, are you OK?
Prof. Searly:
What do you want from me? The room is closed. There is nothing here for you. It is closed and closed forever.
Student:
Is this the same Chinese Room that you have always talked about?
Prof. Searly:
Yes. This is the room. This is the magical room which understands Chinese language. And now they closed it.
Student:
But why? What happened?
Prof. Searly:
I do not want to talk about it.
Student:
Professor, tell me. There should be a reason for closing such a famous place.
Prof. Searly:
It is all because of that guy.
Student:
What guy?
Prof. Searly:
That little Chinese guy.
Student:
Professor, what Chinese guy?
Prof. Searly:
You know they found that Chinese guy who has been sitting in the room all that time. How could I know? I though it was just a program which can answer questions. The program is just a formal syntactical algorithm, and so I argued that there was no real understanding of Chinese there, but now, that guy actually spoiled everything.
Student:
Oh, please, don’t take it so bad. You will get over it. Try to think about something else. What are you going to do tomorrow, professor?
Prof. Searly:
I don’t know. That room has meant so much for me. I think I am moving in.
