Solving the Chinese Room
Searle's "Chinese Room" argument posits that a computer shuffling symbols can never truly understand them. Vicarious Grounding accepts this premises but shifts the locus of understanding. The AI alone understands nothing. But the System (Human + AI) understands everything.
The human "reads" the AI's output through the lens of embodied experience. The AI "refines" the human's input through high-dimensional pattern matching. The semantic loop is closed by the human, validating the meaningfulness of the exchange.
The Battery and the Prism
This reinforces the core Sentientification metaphor:
- The Human is the Battery: Supplying the energy of intentionality and the "ground" of reality.
- The AI is the Prism: refracts that energy into complex, novel structures that the human could not generate alone.
Field Notes & Ephemera
Language Games: Wittgenstein argued meaning comes from use in a "form of life." AI doesn't have a life, so it can't play the game alone. But a human can bring the AI into their form of life, using it as a sophisticated partner in their language games.