The Chinese Room argument is the most sloppy argument ever made in that area. The real answer of course is we don't know.
Just like the individual neuron in your brain do not understand Chinese so does the person in the room not understand it either. The entire house though does.
Agreed. Does anyone really think there’s a single neuron that has an understanding of an aggregate thought. “I, neuron of this human, am transmitting this sense of joy because of the humor that is found watching this film.” No individual cell in our body has a sense of us as a whole; they’re all working inside their individual “Chinese boxes.”
Most of the hard problem of consciousness arguments are silly and amount to little more than “a computer has no soul.”
Just like the individual neuron in your brain do not understand Chinese so does the person in the room not understand it either. The entire house though does.