The ascription of an unconscious intentional phenomenon to a system implies that the phenomenon is in principle accessible to consciousness.
John SearleI will argue that in the literal sense the programmed computer understands what the car and the adding machine understand, namely, exactly nothing.
John SearleThe assertion fallacy is the fallacy of confusing the conditions for the performance of the speech act of assertion with the analysis of the meaning of particular words occurring in certain assertions.
John SearleBecause we do not understand the brain very well we are constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a model for trying to understand it. In my childhood we were always assured that the brain was a telephone switchboard...Sherrington, the great British neuroscientist, thought the brain worked like a telegraph system. Freud often compared the brain to hydraulic and electromagnetic systems. Leibniz compared it to a mill...At present, obviously, the metaphor is the digital computer.
John Searle