Because such argument give a chance to everybody to make a critical comment on them. I spent plenty of time dealing with the issue of mind & computation. One of the best known arguments in this space of cognitive exercises is John Searle's "Chinese Room". But this argument is a remarkable collection of errors.
Searle claims that his argument proves that computers do not understand what they say (compute). I do not know why such argument would be needed: I never thought that computers do understand anything. People may say various things for various reasons, but there is no reason to believe that computers understand more than steam engines do. Searle claims that his argument proves this fact. But his argument is a collection of factual and logical errors.
First of all, Searle does not say what it means "to understand", and how we can know that some entities do understand. This omission is important because Searle's argument can be applied to the human brain in the same way as to the computer. If the argument were valid, it could be used to prove that people do not understand anything either. If people do not understand, then there is no understanding at all.
In terms of factual claims, the argument uses technical concepts in an imprecise and improper way. Searle does not differentiate entities such as "computer", "processor", "process", "program" and similar. The argument and its conclusion regard processor, but this concept does not even appear in the argument.
The argument attributes to the whole a conclusion (valid or not, the same) that regards only a part, which is a logical error. It speaks about processor (a part), not about the computer system (the whole), and it is logically wrong to apply the conclusion that regards a part to the whole. I do not claim that the whole (system) does know more than its parts do: I speak only about the logical error in the argument.
Besides the factual and logical errors, the argument is tautological, because it actually assumes what it claims it proves (that "computer" does not understand). In sum, Searle's Chinese Room argument deserves its fame as a remarkable collection of errors. It seems that these errors have contributed to the fame of this argument. To become famous, one must make plenty of charming errors.
I think bad arguments are so popular because they appeal to the lowest common denominator--emotions--in combating good arguments. Everyone can and does feel a certain way when confronted by a good argument, and fallacies enable people to respond directly to that argument through their emotions without having to do the hard work of critically thinking about the argument or attempting to logically refute it. Moreover, fallacies ostensibly safeguard people from what they fear: that the good argument is actually sound and that their cherished belief is false.
Gabriele, I agree with what you say. I elaborated this issue in my book. The problem with the argument I mentioned here is that it wants to prove that machines do not understand (not feel, which is essential), but the "proof" is a collection of errors.
John Searle is the best speaker (rhetorician) I had the privilege to listen to (as a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley), but his arguments are not good. They are not valid (factually and logically), but they are fun, and this is what makes them (and him) popular.
I completely agree (and I wrote it many times) that living beings and machines are very different entities. My book On Time and Mind contains the Care thesis, which runs like follows:
"The behaviour of living beings is determined by their needs, fears, and aspirations: by care. Human mental features spring from care and they are led by it, and they cannot be completely replicated by care-less systems (computers). It seems reasonable to assume that computers do not know care (although we cannot prove this), so that such systems cannot understand, be intelligent and creative in that sense in which people are."
However, Searle's argument, which claims that it proves what I say that "we cannot prove" is so "loose" (imprecise, conceptually and logically) that it can be applied to anything. And it proves nothing. I cannot enter into details in this regard any more. I mentioned this argument (about which books have been written) because in "academic industry" the number of quotations has become the measure of quality, which is not good. Because being "popular" and being "relevant" is not the same.
I think the answer to this question will reveal the reasons why we, as humanity in total, love Marvel movies or Lady Gaga more than any decent instances of those art forms.
We always want to consider ourselves and the scientific/academic enterpriese as rational or more rational than the rest of the world; however, most of the time we are no more rational than Justin Bieber fans or anything that sort. We, for example, love keywords in academy. If some study has nanorobots or deep-learning or cognitive or MRI or something like that in front of its name, we think that study or project is up to something. This is no different than a fish going for the shiny things. As long as we do not realize our animal desires, pitfalls, shortcomings etc. there would never be a form of academical industry where the most of the work is not focused on useless, poor ideas.
The number of people involved in the academical work is another factor as well. Our society given that most of our times are wasted in front of tv, laptop, tablet, smart phones etc. is in no condition to support this many decent thinkers. There are more than 10 million academics in the world right now. It's 100 times more than what it was 100 years ago. Our society didn't make that huge of a leap but the numbers did. So, quality has to and had to drop.
Institutionalization is another factor as well. Religions to ethics, academics to science. We cannot change that. Academy is getting more and more concerned about itself than anything else. There are endless number of conferences, symposiums, workshops, articles noone ever reads, poster presentations, research labs, peer-reviewers, project budgets etc. that almost everybody is thinking about those things instead of reaching out for the nature and trying to understand it. I sometimes suspect that this is nothing but a huge Ponzi scheme.
"Academy is getting more and more concerned about itself than anything else. There are endless number of conferences, symposiums, workshops, articles noone ever reads, ..."
This is true, and this has set new "criteria of excellence" in science. The more conferences you attended, the greater scientist you are. I think that this is a matter of "business society", more than of academic society by itself. Conferences are business.
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