Please provide thoughtful yet succinct answers to the following questions. Feel free to discuss the assignment with your classmates, especially if you are not a native speaker of English. But write up your discussion notes and answers independently. Please indicate in the response box below if you worked with others and their names.

It has been argued that certain features cluster together at the basic level of categorization. For instance, among other things, basic-level words tend to be shorter than superordinate and subordinate terms.

The logic of the Chinese Room argument is based on the intuition that the person in the room doesn’t understand Chinese. But one response to the Chinese Room argument is to say that it’s using the wrong analogy. “Of course,” this response says, “the person in the room doesn’t understand Chinese. But the room as a whole, including the person, the input/output slots, the instruction manual, and the operations that the person performs with these artifacts, to all intents and purposes, does understand Chinese.” This is sometimes called the Systems Reply.

Your task is to evaluate this reply. In particular, consider how it affects the following inference from the first reading: “Simply identifying and arranging symbols in some language, even if those symbols represent something in the real world, isn't enough to make meaning. It's not enough to say you've understood something." (Reading 1, p. 7)

In one paragraph (5-7 sentences), argue as convincingly as possible for one of the following three theses. It doesn’t matter which one you choose; what matters is that you make a coherent and compelling argument.

(i) The Systems Reply is incorrect, and the original analogy was the more accurate one, because...

(ii) The Systems Reply is correct, and the original analogy was wrong. But it doesn't affect the inferences about meaning and understanding because...

(iii) The Systems Reply is correct, and the original analogy was wrong. And that affects the inferences we can make about meaning and understanding, because... The inferences have to change to...

Some words have multiple, related meanings. For instance, one sense of the word “ring” is “a circular band, often made of metal, worn around the finger.” Take the example of the word “spice.”