I was never really convinced of the counter argument &quot;the combination of the man plus the rules understand chinese, not either individually&quot;. To understand something is to have a conscious experience of the feeling of understanding. I&#x27;m sure most people would agree no conscious experience of understanding would emerge from the combination of man + rule set. Many people involved with computers like to discount qualia, but it is real and part of the thing we call consciousness.<p>Furthermore, on a more classical computational, non-dualist level, one needs to not only know the rule set but generally also has some meta knowledge of the rules themselves when one says they understand a thing. I can program but I can also explain why I&#x27;m writing the program I am as I&#x27;m doing it, how the different parts will interact to produce the whole, etc. I have some knowledge of my own inner black box, something the Chinese room setup lacks.