Chinese Room: Mexican Kitchen Rebuttal

A farce depends upon absurdity for its arsenal, in the same way rhetoric depends upon exaggeration and the unfamiliar. I asked before if you learned the Chinese characters for any Chinese menu items. Let’s do the same for Mexican menu items. If you’ve ever eaten at a Mexican restaurant, then have you ever learned any Mexican names for the dishes? Let’s list some names of Mexican food. Taco, burrito, enchilada, tortilla, salsa, guacamole, tamale, quesadilla, tostada, taquito, fajita, chile relleno, chimichanga, frijoles, huevos rancheros… Si, si. Gracias, gracias. No mas. No mas.

Suppose Searle had worked in a Mexican restaurant instead. Assume he didn’t know the names of any Mexican dishes before he began working. If you honestly believe he could actually cook Mexican food following recipes in a cookbook without learning any of the Mexican names for the dishes, then please stand up. You must be John Searle, but notice that the Chinese Room argument is falling apart. Why is that?

Intent Clarification

It makes absolutely no difference to a credible argument whether the kitchen is in a Chinese restaurant or in a Mexican restaurant, but it makes half a world of difference for purposes of subterfuge. Anybody who presents us with an unfamiliar situation immediately ascends to the status of an expert. A self proclaimed expert needs to keep things complicated to maintain his status. A teacher needs to make the subject material accessible to maintain her status. An expert puts self interest first. A teacher puts the interests of her students first. The goal of self interest is power. Put your trust in the messenger. The goal of common interest is truth. Put your trust in the message. That’s a whole world of difference. I hope I’m succeeding in making these issues easy enough for you to understand. That is my intent.