Thanks for this!

One thing to keep in mind is that there is no obvious evolutionary advantage to also having some form of "understanding" other than functional capabilities. Why would we have been selected for "understanding", "aboutness", if these were a mechanism separate from just performing the task needed?

Without such an evolutionary selection pressure, how come that our capable brains also evolved into be able to "understand" and "be about something" (if these were not necessary by-products), why didn't we just become Chinese Rooms? To me the most parsimonious explanation seems to be that these capabilities go hand in hand with our functional capacity.

I hope my above point was cogently formulated, I'm forced into watching Chip and Dale right next to this window ...