Comment by drdeca

> How does it not!?

Because they can’t use Chinese to speak about things they encounter in the world?

Like, someone asks them in Chinese whether they are hungry and want some food, and they answer based on the program, not based on whether they are actually hungry, because they don’t understand the words in a way that lets them use them as a person who understood Chinese would.

Again, I don’t mean to say that in such a situation that there is no understanding of Chinese happening in their head, only that this doesn’t constitute that person understanding Chinese.

It seems to me very strange to want to say that the person with the simulation in their head understands Chinese. They can’t do the things that understanding Chinese lets people do.

Perhaps the program the person has running in their head is even a person, a moral patient and a moral agent, and one who understands Chinese. But the person who is running (by rote) the program, doesn’t thereby understand Chinese. They may “contain understanding of Chinese”. The understanding is definitely happening in their brain. But they don’t understand Chinese.