John Searle

“There is no way to get from syntax to semantics.”

“Consciousness is a biological feature of the brain in the same way that digestion is a feature of the stomach.”

“We have to abandon the idea that the world is a gigantic machine. It's not a machine. It's a set of processes.”

“The 'Chinese Room' argument showed that a digital computer executing a program cannot have a 'mind,' 'understanding' or 'consciousness,' regardless of how intelligently or human-like the program may make the computer behave.”

“To have a language is to have a set of rules.”

“All human institutions are created and maintained by a series of speech acts.”

“The brain is a biological organ, and consciousness is a biological process.”

“We live in a world of social constructions, but that doesn't mean they're not real.”

“Skepticism, in general, is a disease of the mind.”

“The characteristic of a genuine revolution is that it is not a change of the rules, but a change of the game.”

“The heart of my argument is that the syntax of the program is not sufficient for the semantics.”

“The fact that a theory is consistent with the data is not a sufficient condition for the theory to be true.”

“Where consciousness is concerned, the appearance is the reality.”

“If you can't say it clearly, you don't understand it yourself.”

“You cannot have a meaningless world and have a meaningful life.”

“Language is the most important single invention of the human species.”