The person in the Chinese Room could in principle simulate the brain of a Chinese speaker, but would still not know what it is like to understand the Chinese words he's processing.
Note the distinction between "understand" and "knows what it is like to understand". I accept that the system of man + algorithm does understand Chinese. But it does no know what it is like.
Assume, for the sake of the argument, that we'll eventually have computers powerful enough to simulate brains to the accuracy we think necessary for it to function.
There are several ways this experiment could go:
First, we could fail to produce a mind, because there's some secret sauce to it we're not aware of (eg a God-given soul).
Second, we could produce a zombie, indistinguishable from a conscious individual while actually not being conscious (though note that we'd have to treat it as if it were conscious, for reasons that should be obvious).
Third, we could produce a conscious mind.
I'm in the camp that thinks option three is plausible.
Let's assume I'm right. Now, instead of a supercomputer, give every one of the billions of humans on the planet an instruction manual, a pocket calculator and a phone to communicate results, and have them do the exact same calculations the supercomputer would do. Despite the latency, if option three were true, we should expect that this would still produce a conscious mind, albeit a rather slowly-thinking one.
The person in the Chinese Room could in principle simulate the brain of a Chinese speaker, but would still not know what it is like to understand the Chinese words he's processing.
This is addressed by the Turing Test: the point is that if there is no observable difference, does it matter? You can't tell if other people understand Chinese either.
Personally, the only logical conclusion I can draw is panpsychism. I think a rock rolling down hill experiences free will and perceives its random path as a series of choices.
That's not the only logical conclusion one can draw: Consciousness could be an emergent phenomenon requiring a certain amount of complexity that an individual rock lacks.
Note the distinction between "understand" and "knows what it is like to understand". I accept that the system of man + algorithm does understand Chinese. But it does no know what it is like.