The Chinese Room
Just now, in my physical mailbox, I found my very own DVD copy of The Chinese Room, which is a new indie film by Nate Rulf. It just recently won some awards at some film festivals!
I'd been talking with the director a bit over email, and he sent me a copy of the movie at his own expense. So nice of him! Also, it's released under a Creative Commons license. Which is a beautiful thing.
Now we just have to watch it! Let me know if you're interested.
(possibly-related background: the Chinese room argument is from a 1980 paper by philosopher John Searle; it's an attempt to show that mechanical symbol-processing (like a computer) can never "understand" language. I don't buy it, personally) (more here and here, over on Conscious Entities)
I'd been talking with the director a bit over email, and he sent me a copy of the movie at his own expense. So nice of him! Also, it's released under a Creative Commons license. Which is a beautiful thing.
Now we just have to watch it! Let me know if you're interested.
(possibly-related background: the Chinese room argument is from a 1980 paper by philosopher John Searle; it's an attempt to show that mechanical symbol-processing (like a computer) can never "understand" language. I don't buy it, personally) (more here and here, over on Conscious Entities)