In many cases it is a matter for decision and not a simple matter of fact whether x understands y; and so on.

There are clear cases in which "understanding" literally applies and clear cases in which it does not apply; and these two sorts of cases are all I need for this argument.

My car and my adding machine understand nothing: they are not in that line of business

Many people mistakenly suppose that the essence of consciousness is that of a control mechanism

You do not understand your own tradition if you do not see it in relation to others.

Darwin's greatest achievement was to show that the appearance of purpose, planning, teleology (design), and intentionality in the origin and development of human and animal species was entirely an illusion. The illusion could be explained by evolutionary processes that contained no such purpose at all. But the spread of ideas through imitation required the whole apparatus of human consciousness and intentionality

I will argue that in the literal sense the programmed computer understands what the car and the adding machine understand, namely, exactly nothing.