 One reason the idea of a human-plus-paper machine is important is that it already raises questions about agency and understanding similar to those in the CRA. Suppose I am alone in a closed room and follow an instruction book for manipulating strings of symbols. I thereby implement a paper machine that generates symbol strings such as “N-KB3” that I write on pieces of paper and slip under the door to someone ouside the room. Suppose further that prior to going into the room I don’t know how to play chess, or even that there is such a game. However, unbeknownst to me, in the room I am running Turing’s chess program and the symbol strings I generate are chess notation and are taken as chess moves by those outside the room. They reply by sliding the symbols for their own moves back under the door into the room. If all you see is the resulting sequence of moves displayed on a chess board outside the room, you might think that someone in the room knows how to play chess very well. Do I now know how to play chess? Or is it the system (consisting of me, the manuals, and the paper on which I manipulate strings of symbols) that is playing chess? If I memorize the program and do the symbol manipulations inside my head, do I then know how to play chess, albeit with an odd phenomenology? Does someone’s conscious states matter for whether or not they know how to play chess? If a digital computer implements the same program, does the computer then play chess, or merely simulate this? 