arguments again

24.09x Minds and Machines

lecture 4

an argument is a list of sentences (statements):

P1,Pn, C

the Chinese room,

contd.

the Pi are the premises, and C is the conclusion

see the guide to logic and argumentation
two concepts to master: validity and soundness

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back to the Chinese room argument

still, does the room understand Chinese?

P1: if Searle in the Chinese room doesnt understand Chinese,

the Chinese room doesnt
P2: Searle in the Chinese room doesnt understand Chinese
C: the room doesnt understand Chinese

Actually I feel somewhat embarrassed to give even this

answer to the systems theory because the theory seems
to me so implausible to start with. The idea is that while
a person doesnt understand Chinese, somehow the
conjunction of that person and bits of paper might
understand Chinese. It is not easy for me to imagine
how someone who was not in the grip of an ideology
would find the idea at all plausible.*

the argument is valid

butfor all Searle has saidit is unsound

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a marriage devoted to the mind-body problem

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*Minds, brains, and programs

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the Churchlands guiding obsession

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24.09x

the Churchlands luminous room

an analogous response?

the room really is bathed in luminance, albeit a

grade or quality too feeble to appreciate*

even though Searles Chinese room may appear to be

semantically dark, he is in no position to insist, on the
strength of this appearance, that rule-governed symbol
manipulation can never constitute semantic
phenomena.*

*Could a machine think?

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*Could a machine think?

Searles other argument*

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Axiom 3

A2: minds have mental contents (semantics)

A3, reworded
implementing an algorithm for transforming symbols
into symbols is never sufficient for intentionality

A3: syntax by itself is not sufficient for semantics

is there some other way of arguing for A3?

C1: programs are not sufficient for minds

there is, and it can be extracted from Searles writings

on the Chinese room

A1: computer programs are formal (syntactic)

A3 is supposedly what the Chinese room demonstrated

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*Is the brains mind a computer program?;

constitutive omitted from A3 and C1 for simplicity

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in favor of A3

the robot reply

Inside a room in the robots
skull I shuffle symbolsAs long
as all I have is a formal
computer program, I have no
way of attaching any meaning
to any of the symbols. And the
fact that the robot is engaged
in causal interaction with the
outside world wont help me*

running the
alleged
believes-Reif-isMIT-president
program

why is the program

about Rafael rather
than twin-Rafael?

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president
Rafael Reif

twin-Rafaellives in
another galaxy 4: 11

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*Can computers think?

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not a reply either

strong and strongish AI

strong AI: there is a computer program P such that

any (possible) computer running P literally has
cognitive states

remember: the systems reply is the thesis that Searle is

supposed to be refuting

strongish AI: there is a computer program P such

that any (possible) computer running P and
embedded in the world in certain ways (e.g. certain
causal connections hold between its internal states
and its environment) literally has cognitive states

the robot reply is also not really a replyits another

theory

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the robot reply = strongish AI

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Turing machines and the Turing test

Searle does have a point

against strong AI
but strongish AI remains a live
option

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the father of computing

*Minds, brains, and programs

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the ultimate accolade

WWII codebreaker, founder of

computability theory
invented Turing machines
and the Turing test

Alan Turing (1912-54)

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image credits

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/02/12/two-heads
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Rafael_Reif#mediaviewer/
File:The_Future_of_Higher_Education_L._Rafael_Reif_%288411916296%29.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Galaxies#mediaviewer/
File:Cluster_MACS_J0717.5%2B3745.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Laptop#mediaviewer/File:Laptop.svg

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