John Searle Quotes on Mind
John Searle is an American philosopher long associated with the University of California, Berkeley, whose work has shaped the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind. This page collects quotes attributed to John Searle on the topic of mind, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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Attributed to John Searle:
“Syntax is not sufficient for semantics.”
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Attributed to John Searle:
“There is a difference between simulating a phenomenon and duplicating it.”
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Attributed to John Searle:
“Consciousness is a real biological phenomenon, not an illusion to be explained away.”
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Attributed to John Searle:
“The Chinese Room shows that no formal program, by itself, is enough to constitute understanding.”
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“Is the Brain’s Mind a Computer Program?", Scientific American (January 1990).”
One can imagine a computer simulation of the action of peptides in the hypothalamus that is accurate down to the last synapse. But equally one can imagine a computer simulation of the oxidation of hydrocarbons in a car engine or the action of digestive processes in a stomach when it is digesting pizza. And the simulation is no more the real thing in the case of the brain than it is in the case of -
“The ascription of an unconscious intentional phenomenon to a system implies that the phenomenon is in principle accessible to consciousness.”
A statement of the author’s “connection principle. | Consciousness, Explanatory Inversion, and Cognitive Science," The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13, 4 (December 1990): 585-696. -
“Consciousness, Explanatory Inversion, and Cognitive Science," The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13, 4 (December 1990): 585-696.”
The ascription of an unconscious intentional phenomenon to a system implies that the phenomenon is in principle accessible to consciousness. -
“The Rediscovery of the Mind , p. 97, MIT Press (1992) ISBN 0-262-69154-X .”
Where conscious subjectivity is concerned, there is no distinction between the observation and the thing observed.