| Title | Capish, Comprehendes, Computes? |
|---|---|
| Contributor | David H. Silver(author) |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0526.20 |
| Landing page | https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0526/chapters/10.11647/obp.0526.20 |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ |
| Copyright | David H. Silver |
| Publisher | Open Book Publishers |
| Published on | 2026-04-08 |
| Long abstract | Searle’s Chinese Room thought experiment challenges computational theories of mind: someone manipulates Chinese symbols according to rules without understanding the language. They produce appropriate responses, passing a linguistic Turing test, yet possess no comprehension. The argument distinguishes syntax (symbol manipulation) from semantics (understanding), suggesting that computers executing algorithms operate only at the syntactic level. This questions whether systems like large language models truly understand language or merely simulate understanding through statistical pattern recognition. |
| Print length | 10 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |
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| Landing Page | Full text URL | Platform | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0526/chapters/10.11647/obp.0526.20 | Landing page | https://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0526.20.pdf | Full text URL |
David H. Silver is an industrial researcher whose career bridges computer vision, computational biology, and science communication. He studied mathematics, computer science, and biology at the Technion — Israel Institute of Technology as a Rothschild Scholar, and was awarded a Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship for his doctoral work in computational biology at Cambridge, UK. Silver’s peer-reviewed publications span multiple domains: computational biology in Nature and PNAS; computer vision systems in IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence; medical AI in Human Reproduction and MIDL; and entertainment analysis in PLoS One. He holds over a dozen patents in depth sensing, medical imaging, and generative AI. His industry positions include Algorithm Engineer at Intel Corporation, ML Researcher at Apple, and CTO/co-founder roles at several technology startups. Silver maintains academic collaborations with researchers worldwide and serves as a peer reviewer for Image and Vision Computing and PNAS.