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Searle's review of 1999 of Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines argues that Kurzweil confuses computer simulation of a phenomenon with its duplication, so that a person considering being downloaded onto hardware should ask whether the result would be conscious. Copy claim link
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Date 1999-04-08 · publication Records dated 1999 → Role Contesting Register (kind of text) Nonfiction Engagement Engages a premise. Disputes the premise that running a person's "program and database" on a computer would re-create that person's consciousness rather than simulate it. Scope and limits Searle states that there is no objection in principle to an artificial system that duplicates the causal powers of the brain; his objection is to computation as sufficient.
The evidence 02 primary source Supports the claim
I Married a Computer ↗ The New York Review of Books (nybooks.com), April 8, 1999 issue · 1999-04-08
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Source excerpt “He confuses the computer simulation of a phenomenon with a duplication or re-creation of that phenomenon.” Location in source Paragraph beginning "(1.)"
How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher
Machine-checked · 2026-11-01
Source details and check notes Authors John R. Searle Version Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-31 (SHA-256 00457cfafb1e82fac60187f2d387bf5d9d857ca7f09593f3b603510bb9c94b8f). The New York Review of Books archive page of the review of Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines, April 8, 1999 issue; full text served without sign-in on retrieval; not compared with the print issue. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-31 Language English (en) Attribution John R. Searle, “I Married a Computer”, 1999-04-08. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Candidate pack passage, machine succession, scale and acceleration (research/heterodox-thought). The quotation (16 words) matched the text retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-31. Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. A cross-family machine check (2026-11-01, item 72) re-read the record’s source and agreed with its stance; its corrections were applied at admission. No human editorial review. primary source Supports the claim
I Married a Computer ↗ The New York Review of Books (nybooks.com), April 8, 1999 issue · 1999-04-08
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Cite the original source Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.
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Source excerpt “Anybody who is seriously considering having his "program and database" downloaded onto some hardware ought to wonder whether or not the resulting hardware is going to be conscious.” Location in source Same paragraph
How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher
Machine-checked · 2026-11-01
Source details and check notes Authors John R. Searle Version Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-31 (SHA-256 00457cfafb1e82fac60187f2d387bf5d9d857ca7f09593f3b603510bb9c94b8f). The New York Review of Books archive page of the review of Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines, April 8, 1999 issue; full text served without sign-in on retrieval; not compared with the print issue. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-31 Language English (en) Attribution John R. Searle, “I Married a Computer”, 1999-04-08. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Candidate pack passage, machine succession, scale and acceleration (research/heterodox-thought). The quotation (28 words) matched the text retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-31. Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. A cross-family machine check (2026-11-01, item 72) re-read the record’s source and agreed with its stance; its corrections were applied at admission. No human editorial review. Status and meaning Editorial status. Machine-checked . Machines found this record and checked it against its sources; no person accepted it individually. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.
Relation. A passage of the document disputes the proposition or a premise it depends on. The record documents the text’s position, not who is right.
Date. The New York Review of Books, April 8, 1999 issue.
Record ID ht-w03-searle-1999-i-married-a-computer