Searle (who does not understand Chinese), could execute a program that implements the same algorithm that the computer was using without knowing what any of the words he was manipulating meant. At first glance, it would seem that if there's no meaning going on inside Searle's head when he is implementing that program, then there's no meaning going on inside the computer when it is the one implementing the algorithm either, computation being implementation-independent. But on a closer look, for a person to execute the same program that a computer would, at very least it would have to have access to a similar bank of memory that the computer has (most likely externally stored). This means that the new computational system that executes the same algorithm is no longer just Searle's original head, but that plus the memory bank (and possibly other devices). In particular, this additional memory could store a digital representation of the intended referent of different words (like images, sounds, even video sequences), that the algorithm would use as a model of, and to derive features associated with, the intended referent. The "meaning" then is not to be searched in just Searle's original brain, but in the overall system needed to process the algorithm. Just like when Searle is reading English words, the meaning is not to be located in isolated logical processing areas of the brain, but probably in the overall brain, likely including specific long-term memory areas. Thus, Searle's not perceiving any meaning in his head alone when simulating the work of a computer, does not imply lack of meaning in the overall system, and thus in the actual computer system passing an advanced Turing test. Implications How does Searle know that there is no meaning going on in his head when he is executing such a Turing-test-passing program? Exactly the same way he knows whether there is or is not meaning going on inside his head under any other conditions: He understands the words of English, whereas the Chinese symbols that he is manipulating according to the algorithm's rules mean nothing whatsoever to him (and there is no one else in his head for them to mean anything to). However, the complete system that is manipulating those Chinese symbols – which is not just Searle's brain, as explained in the previous section – may have the ability to extract meaning from those symbols, in