[wrs]

I understand the Chinese Room argument to be that because the human in the room doesn’t understand Chinese, the system doesn’t understand Chinese. In this case, none of the humans can recognize cats, but the collective can.

[cscurmudgeon]

Thats not the Chinese Room argument. The argument says just because a system processes X doesn't imply it has consciousness of X.

[wrs]

The flaw is the unsupported assertion that the whole system being conscious of X depends on a part of the system being conscious of X. The same assertion would fail here in the same way.

[mensetmanusman]

At these levels of discussion everything is asserted as axioms to see what the consequences are.

If a human isn’t conscious of Chinese, but the arrangement of paper rules is, one would have to assert that paper + human is conscious.

[cscurmudgeon]

Are you talking about access consciousness or phenomenal consciousness?