text: [Themes: Surreal, adventure, metaphysics, ethics, humor, fantasy, educational, gender-neutral protagonist, unicorn, philosophy]
  
  > look
  It's a plain concrete box, equipped only with desk and chair. A computer sits on the desk, casting an insipid electronic glow over a stack of cards sitting by the keyboard. There's a slow drip from a damp patch up on the ceiling. Some grubby light seeps through a high window across onto the poster that dominates an entire wall. Across the top of the poster huge bold letters read "THE CHINESE ROOM". Underneath -- a string of Chinese characters.
  
  [Author's Note: The Chinese Room is a hilarious romp through the world of philosophical thought experiments. Have you ever wanted to win Zeno's race? Free the denizens of Plato's Cave? Or find out what it's really like to be a bat? Now is your chance!]
  
  > think about CHINESE ROOM
  The Chinese Room argument is a thought experiment originally devised by John Searle, designed to answer the question (in the negative): "Can a computer ever understand language?"
  
  Imagine a computer that has so complete a set of rules for providing Chinese output to Chinese input that it behaves exactly as a human who understands Chinese would. Ask it a question in Chinese, and it will give an appropriate response in Chinese. It appears do "understand" Chinese. But does it?
  
  Imagine now a human living in a small room, who is given a book consisting of a vast set of rules for providing a response in Chinese characters for any information ey receive in Chinese characters. Like a computer ey will provide appropriate Chinese output to Chinese input. The person is analogous to a computer, but does the person understand Chinese? It would seem, intuitively, that ey don't.
  
  The meat of the argument here is to distinguish between syntax, the rules by which language is constructed and manipulated, and semantics, what language actually means, and then claim that even incredibly in-depth knowledge of syntax is not sufficient for semantics -- only human-type minds, and not an artificial intelligence, have the capability to understand meaning.
  
  This leads into the debate about what "meaning" actually means. What can it be that only human-type minds have? What makes us special? Some philosophers, including, perhaps, the creators of the world you now find yourself in, would argue that actually all that the mind's ability to respond to input actually comprises is an incredibly complex set of learned syntactical rules, and that "meaning" separate from this is illusory -- so that if one were to learn all the rules for Chinese language-manipulation, one would understand that language.
  
  > look at the poster
  Underneath the title there is a string of Chinese characters.
  
  > examine the characters
  Chinese, if you please.
  
  > look at the drip
  There's a damp patch spreading across the ceiling from the hatch at one end.
  
  > look at the hatch
  It's too high to reach without standing on something, and it's locked.
  
  > look at the desk
  A simple affair, with black steel legs and a woodgrain formica surface. A drawer is stuck on underneath as an afterthought, like chewing-gum. What is interesting is what is on the desk.
  
  > think about the zombies
  Philosophical zombies, or pzombies, are another common thought experiment in philosophy of mind. They are creations which look and behave in every way like people, but which have no conscious experience. They raise a huge number of questions: are they possible? What is conscious experience? Could a zombie behave like a human without conscious experience? Is conscious experience a physical or non-physical phenomenon?
  
  These questions lead into what is known as "the hard problem of consciousness", which is: how do we explain subjective (or "phenomenal") conscious experience in terms of its neurological basis? Is the mind separate from the brain, like a free-floating soul? Is the mind a function of the brain, with mental activity caused by brain activity? Is the mind and conscious experience as we understand it an illusion, with the brain no more than the physical? If the mind is caused by the brain, how is it caused, and what is it about the brain that causes it?
  
  The hard problem of consciousness is one of the most perennial problems in philosophy, and in the two decades since it was first formulated by Richard Chalmers we have made little progress. This had led some philosophers, especially postmodern philosophers or followers of Wittgenstein, to wonder whether the problem itself arises only from a sort of language-game, a particular linguistic conception of the mind that has developed over time, especially in the West. Maybe it is not consciousness which is illusory, but rather the existence of the problem of consciousness!
  
  > open the drawer
  Inside the drawer sits a squat, leather-bound manual. It looks even more daunting than The Phenomenology of Spirit.
  
  > read the manual
  The manual is a thick, leather-bound tome with THE RULES embossed in gold on the cover. Inside, you find hundreds and hundreds of rules, written in English, for transforming sets of incomprehensible Chinese characters into other sets of incomprehensible Chinese characters. You can't imagine why.
  
  > get manual
  Taken.
  
  > Transform characters
  Your desire has passed beyond meaning.
  
  > examine the cards
  You flick through the cards. Each of them features a number and a set of incomprehensible Chinese characters.
  
  > look on the desk
  A stack of strange rectangular cards is on the desk. The uppermost one features a number and a string of Chinese characters.
  
  > get the cards
  What do you want with a bunch of cards like that? Leave them be, unless you want to CONSULT something ABOUT them.
  
  > consult the manual about the cards
  You pick a card and then slowly, meticulously use the rules in the manual to generate a new set of chinese characters from the set on the card, typing it into the computer. What it all means you can't begin to guess, but it passes the time with some harmless mental exercise, like a Sudoku puzzle.
  
  > look at the computer
  The computer screen displays the set of Chinese characters you just typed in, while each of the keyboard buttons features a Chinese character, apart from one big one at the bottom marked SEND.
  
  > look at the poster
  Underneath the title there is a string of Chinese characters.
  
  > Type characters
  You'd better deal with the set you already typed in first.
  
  > Type characters
  You press a few random keys, watching the Chinese appear on the screen, and then hit SEND. A message flashes up saying "INCORRECT!" before promptly vanishing again. Perhaps you ought to approach this more systematically.
  
  > translate the poster
  Your desire has passed beyond meaning.
  
  > About yourself
  As good-looking as ever.
  
  > check your inventory
  You are carrying:
  a manual
  
  > take the poster
  It would tear!
  
  > look at the poster
  Underneath the title there is a string of Chinese characters.
  
  > look at the window
  It's high in the wall and far too small to fit through.
  
  > think about descartes
  Ren? Descartes (1596 - 1650) has become known as the Father of Modern Philosopher. A French thinker, his philosophy was founded on sceptical rationalism -- he sought to determine what could be rationally proved, using a method of extreme scepticism in order to test his beliefs. He as attempting to write "as if no-one had written on these matters before", and so his philosophy framed a great deal of what came after him, ushering in an era of ahistorical analytic philosophy which sought to determine the truth of the world.
  
  > look
  It's a plain concrete box, equipped only with desk and chair. A computer sits on the desk, casting an insipid electronic glow over a stack of cards sitting by the keyboard. There's a slow drip from a damp patch up on the ceiling. Some grubby light seeps through a high window across onto the poster that dominates an entire wall. Across the top of the poster huge bold letters read "THE CHINESE ROOM". Underneath -- a string of Chinese characters.
  
  > look at the chair
  The kind of grey plastic chair you find in schoolrooms. It sits by the desk.
  
  > look at the drip
  There's a damp patch spreading across the ceiling from the hatch at one end.
  
  > stand on the chair
  You stand on the chair. You can see your house from here! Well, you can't really, but you can reach the hatch.
  
  > say open the sesame
  (to yourself)
  Just TALK TO them.
  
  > examine the chair
  The kind of grey plastic chair you find in schoolrooms. It sits under the hatch.
  
  > Examine poster
  You can read the poster now! It says "Look in the drawer". Eh?
  
  > look in the the drawer
  There's a key in here!
  
  > take key
  What the -- ? It was in here all along?
  
  > think about John Searle
  The Chinese Room argument is a thought experiment originally devised by John Searle, designed to answer the question (in the negative): "Can a computer ever understand language?"
  
  Imagine a computer that has so complete a set of rules for providing Chinese output to Chinese input that it behaves exactly as a human who understands Chinese would. Ask it a question in Chinese, and it will give an appropriate response in Chinese. It appears do "understand" Chinese. But does it?
  
  Imagine now a human living in a small room, who is given a book consisting of a vast set of rules for providing a response in Chinese characters for any information ey receive in Chinese characters. Like a computer ey will provide appropriate Chinese output to Chinese input. The person is analogous to a computer, but does the person understand Chinese? It would seem, intuitively, that ey don't.
  
  The meat of the argument here is to distinguish between syntax, the rules by which language is constructed and manipulated, and semantics, what language actually means, and then claim that even incredibly in-depth knowledge of syntax is not sufficient for semantics -- only human-type minds, and not an artificial intelligence, have the capability to understand meaning.
  
  This leads into the debate about what "meaning" actually means. What can it be that only human-type minds have? What makes us special? Some philosophers, including, perhaps, the creators of the world you now find yourself in, would argue that actually all that the mind's ability to respond to input actually comprises is an incredibly complex set of learned syntactical rules, and that "meaning" separate from this is illusory -- so that if one were to learn all the rules for Chinese language-manipulation, one would understand that language.
  
  > ask the computer about the life
  You can only do that to something animate.
  
  > climb the chair
  You're positively climbing up the walls.
  
  > stand on the chair
  You're already on it!
  
  > Unlock hatch
  What do you want to unlock the hatch with?
  
  > Key
  Balancing precariously on the chair, you reach up and unlock the hatch. It swings open, and fresh air and clean light flood the room. Freedom beckons!
  
  > Up
  You haul yourself up through the hatch and scramble onto the roof of the Chinese Room, the hatch thudding shut behind you. Escape!
  
  Getting to your feet, you are conscious of your jaw dropping wide open. A fantastical landscape spreads out around you in every direction. You turn around and around, taking in the astonishing sights around you -- to the north, a pretty little rural town clambers up the wooded hillside; on the east side wide grassy plains spread off into the distance, on the west side the sea does likewise, while to the south . . . to the south an enormous granite crag towers on the countryside, topped by a castle of medieval extravagance.
  
  A bright sun and blue sky blaze over everything -- in fact, all of the colours in this extraordinary vista have a zealous intensity. It all feels too, too unreal for words.
  
  Slowly, as if it were about to vanish into nothingness beneath you, you sit down on the roof and raise your exhausted eyes to the sky. You let out a small whimper. For above you, flitting happily among the fluffy clouds, a flock of enormous flying beasts streaming spaghetti soar.
  
  The roof of the Chinese Room is flat and covered with pitch, hot under the sun. On the east side of the building, a ladder leads down to the road.