system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why is the Chinese Room argument flawed?

Searle's "Chinese Room" thought experiment was used to demonstrate that computers do not have an understanding of Chinese in the way that a Chinese speaker does; they have a syntax but no semantics.

It has been heavily criticized that it is not the English-speaking human inside the room that acts as a computer but rather the room as a whole, with the human as a kind of central processing unit.

My question is why the realization that the room as a whole is more analogous to a computer relevant to Searle's argument that computers can't think? Doesn't the computer, in this case it being the whole room with the human, still lack semantics? What specifically gives the room as a whole the opportunity to understand Chinese while the human in the room does not?

EDIT: Okay, a lot of people have replied mostly explaining that it is the room's ability to speak Chinese that gives it the ability to understand it. Upon first read this seems backwards to me - wouldn't the ability to understand a language naturally give way to the ability to speak it, and not the other way around? This is just a kneejerk reaction mind you, but to me it seems like the most logical or if not most logical at least the most intuitive answer. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's correct, so I will say this:

There is this direct Searle response about the whole room (the system) understanding Chinese:
> There is no way that the system can get from the syntax to the semantics. I, as the central processing unit have no way of figuring out what any of these symbols means; but then neither does the whole system.

What about this is inadequate? The room is a machine designed to respond to questions in Chinese, not to think about the questions asked and formulate a response.
gpt
> It has been heavily criticized that it is not the English-speaking human inside the room that acts as a computer but rather the room as a whole...

People do popularly give this objection, but given that it's something Searle himself has raised and discussed in the original paper, one would expect them to comment on his response to this suggestion, rather than, as is more typical, to simply offer this suggestion as if it were something he never thought of and in some supposedly obvious way trumps his case.

Though, in this case, it sounds like you have some of Searle's own doubts about this objection already in mind.