The Chinese Room argument for any sort of thing that people would commonly call a ‘computer’ to not be able to have an understanding is either rooted on them just engaging in endless goalpost movement for what it means to ‘understand’ something (in which case this is obviously silly), or in the fact that they assume that only things with nervous systems can have qualia, and that understanding belongs to qualia (in which case this is something that can be concluded without the Chinese Room argument in the first place).

In any case, Chinese Room is not really relevant to the topic of if considering brains to be computers is somehow erroneous.

and yet you ignore the definitions the author provided

Which definitions am I ignoring? I have quite literally addressed the parts where the author gives definitions.
The author is really bad at actually providing definitions. They give three different ones for what an ‘algorithm’ is, but can’t give a single one to what the expression ‘mechanically following instructions’ means.

Turing machines are integral to discussions about computing, algorithms and human consciousness

They are irrelevant to the parts that you quoted prior to bringing up Turing machines.

The author uses the phrase ‘turing complete’ several times in the article

Not in any part that you quoted up to that point.

even in parts i have quoted

I looked for those with ctrl+f. There are no mention of Turing machines and of Turing completeness up to the relevant point.

and makes numerous subtle references to the ideas

Expecting the reader of the article to be a mind reader is kind of wild.
In any case, the author is not making any references to Turing machines and Turing completeness in the parts you quoted up to the relevant point.
Also, the author seems to not actually use the term ‘Turing machine’ to prove any sort of point in the parts that you quoted and highlighted.

focusing on a semantic/jargon faux pas does not hide your apparent ignorance of the subject

I bring up a bunch of issues with what the author says. Pretending that my only issue is the author fumbling their use of terminology once just indicates that, contrary to your claims, my criticism is not addressed.

there were no previous definition

This is a lie. Here’s a definition that is given in the parts that you quoted previously:

(2) an algorithm is a finite set of instructions that can be followed mechanically, with no insight required, in order to give some specific output for a specific input

I’m going to note that this is not the first time I’m catching you being dishonest here.

Furthermore, since you seem to miss this fact many times, the author is using the definitions put forward in another article by someone claiming that the brain is a computer

Okay, I went and found the articles that they are talking about (hyperlinked text is not easily distinguishable by me on that site). Turns out, the author of the article that you are defending is deliberately misunderstanding that other article. Specifically, this part is bad:

In order to avoid that, he subscribes to Wittgenstein and suggests that since when we think about modern day computers, we are thinking about machines like our laptops, desktops, phones which achieve extremely powerful and useful computation, we should hence restrict the word computers to these type of systems (hint: the problem is right here!!)

Here’s a relevant quote from the original article:

As such, these machines that are now ubiquitous in our lives are a much more powerful form of computer than a stone or a snowflake, which are limited to computing only the functions of physics that apply to their movement

Also, I’d argue that the relevant definitions in the original article might be/are bad.

Onto the rest of your reply.

and that it is not a metaphor

So far, I don’t see any good arguments against that put forth by the author you are defending.

By refusing to read the entire article you only demonstrate your lack of understanding

I came here initially to address a particular argument. Unless the author redefines the relevant words elsewhere, the rest of the article is irrelevant to my criticism of that argument.

Was your response written by an LLM?

Cute.

‘we have’ in this case is equivalent to ‘exists’

I do not trust the author to not blunder that part, especially considering that they are forgetting that computable functions have to be N->N.

i have no idea what you mean by this, according to wikipedia: “A computer is a machine that can be programmed to automatically carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation).” which is identical in content to the author’s definition

‘The English Wikipedia gives this “definition”, so it must be the only definition and/or understanding in this relevant context’ is not a good argument’.
I’m going to admit that I did make a blunder regarding my criticism of their point (3), at least internally. We can consider myself wrong on that point. In any case, sure, let’s go with the definition that the author uses. Have they provided any sort of argument against it? Because so far, I haven’t seen any sort of good basis for their position.

The point that the author is making here is that the definitions are functionally equivalent, one is the result of the implications of the other

They are not equivalent. If something is an algorithm by one of those ‘definitions’ (both of them are not good), then it might not be an algorithm by the other definition.
The author is just plain wrong there.

‘mechanically’ just means ‘following a set of pre-determined rules’

Care to cite where the author says that? Or is this your own conjecture?
In any case, please, tell me how your brain can operate in contradiction to the laws of physics. I’ll wait to see how a brain can work without following ‘a set of pre-determined rules’.

as in a turing machine or chinese room

Or in any kind of other system, judging by the ‘definition’.

you would know this if you were familiar with either

Cute.

you have not. this is the author of the pro-brain-as-computer article restricting his definitions

You mean this part?

As I argued above, I think it’s reasonable to restrict their usage to machines, like the brain, that not only solve the functions of physics, but a much larger array of computable functions, potentially even all of them (assuming the space of possible brains is Turing complete)

Or the part where, again, the same author literally calls stones and snowflakes ‘computers’ (which I am going to back as a reasonable use of the word)?

I am not sure you understood anything in the article

I was addressing particular arguments. Again, unless the author redefines the words elsewhere in the article, the rest of the article has no bearing on my criticism.

in short you are an illiterate pompous ass incapable of interpreting any nuance or meaning from text

Cool. Now, please, tell me how my initial claim, ‘this is a rather silly argument’ is bad, and how the rest of the article is relevant. Enlighten me, in what way is me saying that the particular argument that you quoted, and for which you have failed to provide any sort of context that is significant to my criticism making me ‘illiterate’?

In case you still don’t understand, ‘read the entire rest of the article’ is not a good refutation of the claim ‘this particular argument is bad’ when the rest of the article does not actually redefine any of the relevant words (in a way that is not self-contradictory).

In return, I can conclude that you are very defensive of the notion that brains somehow don’t operate by the laws of physics, and it’s all just magic, and can’t actually deal with criticism of the arguments for your position.