In the

philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addre ...

, the China brain

thought experiment A thought experiment is a hypothetical situation in which a hypothesis, theory, or principle is laid out for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. History The ancient Greek ''deiknymi'' (), or thought experiment, "was the most anci ...

(also known as the Chinese Nation or Chinese Gym) considers what would happen if each member of the

Chinese nation ''Zhonghua minzu'' (, ) is a political term in modern Chinese nationalism related to the concepts of nation-building, ethnicity, and race in the Chinese nationality. ''Zhonghua minzu'' was established during the early Beiyang (1912–1 ...

were asked to simulate the action of one

neuron A neuron, neurone, or nerve cell is an electrically excitable cell that communicates with other cells via specialized connections called synapses. The neuron is the main component of nervous tissue in all animals except sponges and placozoa. N ...

in the brain, using telephones or

walkie-talkie A walkie-talkie, more formally known as a handheld transceiver (HT), is a hand-held, portable, two-way radio transceiver. Its development during the Second World War has been variously credited to Donald Hings, radio engineer Alfred J. Gross, ...

s to simulate the

axons An axon (from Greek ἄξων ''áxōn'', axis), or nerve fiber (or nerve fibre: see American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, spelling differences), is a long, slender projection of a nerve cell, or neuron, in vertebrates, th ...

and

dendrites Dendrites (from Greek δένδρον ''déndron'', "tree"), also dendrons, are branched protoplasmic extensions of a nerve cell that propagate the electrochemical stimulation received from other neural cells to the cell body, or soma, of the n ...

that connect neurons. Would this arrangement have a

mind The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...

in the same way that brains do? Early versions of this scenario were put forward in 1961 by Anatoly Dneprov, in 1974 by Lawrence Davis, and again in 1978 by

Ned Block Ned Joel Block (born 1942) is an American philosopher working in philosophy of mind who has made important contributions to the understanding of consciousness and the philosophy of cognitive science. He has been professor of philosophy and psych ...

. Block argues that the China brain would not have a mind, whereas

Daniel Dennett Daniel Clement Dennett III (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relat ...

argues that it would. The China brain problem is a special case of the more general problem whether minds could exist within other, larger minds. The

Chinese room The Chinese room argument holds that a digital computer executing a program cannot have a " mind," "understanding" or "consciousness," regardless of how intelligently or human-like the program may make the computer behave. The argument was pres ...

scenario analyzed by

John Searle John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959, and was Willis S. and Mario ...

, is a similar thought experiment in philosophy of mind that relates to

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

. Instead of people, each modeling a single neuron of the brain, in the Chinese room clerks who do not speak Chinese accept notes in Chinese and return an answer in Chinese according to a set of rules without the people in the room ever understanding what those notes mean. In fact, the original short story ''The Game'' (1961) by the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

and

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

Anatoly Dneprov contains both the China brain and the Chinese room scenarios as follows: All 1400 delegates of the Soviet Congress of Young Mathematicians willingly agree to take part in a "purely mathematical game" proposed by Professor Zarubin. The game requires the execution of a certain set of rules given to the participants, who communicate with each other using sentences composed only of the words "zero" and "one". After several hours of playing the game, the participants have no idea of what is going on as they get progressively tired. One girl becomes too dizzy and leaves the game just before it ends. On the next day, Professor Zarubin reveals to everyone's excitement that the participants were simulating a computer machine that translated a sentence written in Portuguese "Os maiores resultados são produzidos por – pequenos mas contínuos esforços," a language that nobody from the participants understood, into the sentence in Russian "The greatest goals are achieved through minor but continuous ekkedt", a language that everyone from the participants understood. It becomes clear that the last word, which should have been "efforts", is mistranslated due to the dizzy girl leaving the simulation.

Background

Many theories of

mental states A mental state, or a mental property, is a state of mind of a person. Mental states comprise a diverse class, including perception, pain experience, belief, desire, intention, emotion, and memory. There is controversy concerning the exact definiti ...

are

materialist Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materialis ...

, that is, they describe the mind as the behavior of a physical object like the brain. One formerly prominent example is the identity theory, which says that mental states are brain states. One criticism is the problem of

multiple realizability Multiple realizability, in the philosophy of mind, is the thesis that the same mental property, state, or event can be implemented by different physical properties, states, or events. Philosophers of mind have used multiple realizability to argue ...

. The physicalist theory that responds to this is functionalism, which states that a mental state can be whatever functions as a mental state. That is, the mind can be composed of

s, or it could be composed of

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

s or

toilet paper Toilet paper (sometimes called toilet tissue or bathroom tissue) is a tissue paper product primarily used to clean the anus and surrounding anal region of feces after defecation, and to clean the perineal area and external genitalia of u ...

, as long as it provides mental functionality.

The thought experiment

Suppose that the whole nation of China was reordered to simulate the workings of a single brain (that is, to act as a mind according to functionalism). Each Chinese person acts as (say) a neuron, and communicates by special

two-way radio A two-way radio is a radio that can both transmit and receive radio waves (a transceiver), unlike a broadcast receiver which only receives content. It is an audio (sound) transceiver, a transmitter and receiver in one unit, used for bidirecti ...

in the corresponding way to the other people. The current mental state of the China brain is displayed on satellites that may be seen from anywhere in China. The China brain would then be connected via radio to a body, one that provides the sensory inputs and behavioral outputs of the China brain. Thus, the China brain possesses all the elements of a functional description of mind: sensory inputs, behavioral outputs, and internal mental states causally connected to other mental states. If the nation of China can be made to act in this way, then, according to functionalism, this system would have a

. Block's goal is to show how unintuitive it is to think that such an arrangement could create a mind capable of thoughts and feelings.

Consciousness

The China brain argues that consciousness is a problem for functionalism. Block's Chinese nation presents a version of what is known as the

absent qualia The concept of absent qualia is one of two major functionalist objections to the existence of qualia, the other being the inverted spectrum hypothesis. Qualia is a philosophical term used to refer to an individual's subjective experience, that is ...

objection to functionalism because it purports to show that it is possible for something to be functionally equivalent to a human being and yet have no conscious experience. A creature that functions like a human being but doesn't feel anything is known as a "

philosophical zombie A philosophical zombie or p-zombie argument is a thought experiment in philosophy of mind that imagines a hypothetical being that is physically identical to and indistinguishable from a normal person but does not have consciousness, conscious ex ...

". So the absent qualia objection to functionalism could also be called the "zombie objection".

Criticisms

Some philosophers, like

, have concluded that the China brain does create a mental state. Functionalist philosophers of mind endorse the idea that something like the China brain can realise a mind, and that neurons are, in principle, not the only material that can create a mental state.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:China brain Philosophy of artificial intelligence Philosophical arguments Thought experiments in philosophy of mind

Background

The thought experiment

Consciousness

Criticisms

See also

References