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

You can't *discover* that the brain is a digital computer. You can only *interpret* the brain as a digital computer.

Where conscious subjectivity is concerned, there is no distinction between the observation and the thing observed.

Whatever is referred to must exist. Let us call this the axiom of existence.

Where questions of style and exposition are concerned I try to follow a simple maxim: if you can't say it clearly you don't understand it yourself.

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

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