Philosophy often borrows examples from other fields in order to provide concrete examples of quite abstract ideas.
Unfortunately, this often gets misunderstood (both by practitioners of those fields and people with an axe to grind) as being critical of the field. The criticism is usually really directed at another philosophical position.
I think the reason the Chinese Room argument gets so much attention is that it's an argument against a position that was popular in the 1970s --- that mental states are identical (as in, strict identity) to classical computational states --- while being easy to understand and criticise. As you say, it assumes its own conclusion.
To be fair to Searle, I shoul point out that while the chinese room argument isn't taken seriously, he did other unrelated work that is still relevant!
Unfortunately, this often gets misunderstood (both by practitioners of those fields and people with an axe to grind) as being critical of the field. The criticism is usually really directed at another philosophical position.
I think the reason the Chinese Room argument gets so much attention is that it's an argument against a position that was popular in the 1970s --- that mental states are identical (as in, strict identity) to classical computational states --- while being easy to understand and criticise. As you say, it assumes its own conclusion.
To be fair to Searle, I shoul point out that while the chinese room argument isn't taken seriously, he did other unrelated work that is still relevant!