 The heart of the argument is Searle imagining himself following an symbol processing program written in English (which is what Turing called “a paper machine”). The English speaker (Searle) sitting in the room follows English instructions for manipulating Chinese symbols, whereas a computer “follows” (in some sense) a program written in a computing language. The human produces the appearance of understanding Chinese by following the symbol manipulating instructions, but does not thereby come to understand Chinese. Since a computer just does what the human does – manipulate symbols on the basis of their syntax alone – no computer, merely by following a program, comes to genuinely understand Chinese.