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>>20662
You're losing track of what I'm saying. The Chinese person thought experiment only serves to show that something that appears conscious, understanding or aware doesn't mean that it is. So the outwards behavior cannot be used to determine the nature of or study consciousness. This was to reinforce the notion that you couldn't construct a consciousness by demonstrating that you can have unconscious entities acting conscious. This along with the exploration of the inner workings of a machine is meant to demonstrate that the human experience is something unable to be replicated by humans using material means. And if there is no way to recreate (only mimic) consciousness trough material means then it follows that consciousness must be otherworldly: the soul. Whether animals or aliens or other humans have souls isn't part of the idea I'm conveying. It's not a question of who has souls it's the question of is the experience of consciousness (being a beholder and not a calculator) possible without one. I was saying that trough my private experience, that may or may not be shared, I am convinced that my own experience cannot be explained trough material means. Conveying this idea to another person presupposes shared experience but that's not central to what I'm saying.