Philosophy Week 5 Notes Week 4 Review 1 Mind Body Dualism Descartes Why Cogito 2 Mind Body Problem Two Main Problems If minds are bodies and are two different kinds of things i e substances then how do they interact What am I Mind body or both Two general solutions i Dualism Minds nonphysical and bodies physical are different substances therefore my mind and body are distinct ii Materialism Physicalism Like bodies minds are physical therefore I am a physical being 3 Dualism s Substance Cartesian Dualism Property Dualism Epiphenomenalism Property Dualism Interactionalism Property Dualism Emergence 4 Arguments for Dualism Argument from Religion Argument from introspection Argument from irreducibility Capacities 5 Arguments Against Dualism Simplicity Explanatory Impotence Neural Dependency Evolutionary History Terminology Mind Conscious intelligence Churchland page 157 Related Terms mental Consciousness Subjective character of experience Nagel page 169 Related Terms experience feeling sensation subjectivity qualia Intelligence The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills Oxford Dictionary Related Terms cognition mental reasoning thinking Problems of Consciousness 1 What is consciousness 2 How does it relate to the body brain 3 Can it be explained by science Is it material physical Is consciousness an illusion 4 5 Do non humans have consciousness 6 Nagel Problem of consciousness The Problem of Subjectivity Explain the subjective character of experience Science cannot explain consciousness because science is about objective facts and consciousness is purely subjective The best we can do is extrapolate e g bat sonar and human vision My realism about the subjective domain in all its forms implies a belief in the existence of facts beyond the reach of human concepts page 171 1 The fact that an organism has conscious experience means there is something it is like to 2 What it is like to be that organism can be referred to as the subjective character of 3 Any scientific analysis of consciousness is logically compatible with the absence of the 4 Any scientific analysis of consciousness would fail to explain the subjective character of subjective character of experience experience 5 Consciousness is non physical Argument What it is like be that organism experience Jackson Problem of Consciousness The Explanatory Gap Physicalism Materialism does not account for qualia Points There is a gap between our physical descriptions of the world and our actual experiences Complete physical knowledge is not sufficient for complete knowledge of consciousness Therefore consciousness must involve non physical properties Argument The Knowledge Argument Mary the Color Scientist 1 Before her release Mary has all the physical knowledge about human color vision 2 After being released Mary experiences color 3 There is some knowledge about human color vision that Mary did not have before her release 4 Not all knowledge is physical Read Turning Page 177 Searle Page 181 Optional The Chinese Room Argument Turning Father of modern computers 1952 prosecuted for homosexual acts chemically castrated Turning Machine Simple abstract computational devices intended to help investigate the extent and limitations of what can be computed Baker Plummer 2012 Consists of a line of cells known as the tape together with a single active cell known as the head The cells on the tape can have a certain set of symbols and the head can be in a certain set of possible states Wolfram 2015 The Imitation Game There are three players an Interrogator a Machine and a person First player A is a machine whose object is to trick the Interrogator C into believing The third player B is a person who tries to help C arrive at the correct identifications of The game proceeds by C posting questions to both A and B and trying to identify them that it is a person A and B on the basis of their answers Is it conceivable that computers may be programmed to convincingly imitate people and fool their interrogator Objection to affirmative answer to question can machines think Argument from Consciousness The only way by which one could be sure that a machine thinks is to be the machine and to feel oneself thinking Turning page 178 Reply Solipsism How do we know other people are thinking Argument from Definitions We should begin with definitions of the meaning of the terms machine and think before we can know if a machine can think Turning page 177 Reply 1 Public Opinion What the majority thinks a term means might not get to the phenomenon we are investigating Reply 2 Usefulness Defining terms is not always helpful Searle Response to Turning Can a Machine Think Not if the machine works like a turning machine Can a machine have consciousness Not if the machine works like a Turning machine Does passing the Turning test mean that a machine is intelligent Not if the machine works like a Turning machine What is a machine Machine1 A physical system capable of performing certain functions E g humans are biological machines Machine2 Thinking is the result of a computer program that is the execution of rules to manipulate formal symbols E g desktops and laptops are formal symbols manipulators they are Turning machines Kinds of Artificial Intelligence Searle page 182 Argument Against Strong AI Chinese Room Argument Weak AI Computers can model or simulate minds weather Strong AI Minds can be produced by merely the manipulation of formal symbols I e The mind is to the brain as the program is to the hardware Searle page 182 Suppose that I undergo this test I am placed in a room and given two baskets of Chinese symbols and a rule book in English for matching these symbols and there are people outside the room who inserts symbols from my baskets out another slot in response and according to the rule book Suppose that I fool the people outside the room into thinking I am a native speaker of Chinese when I do not know what any of the symbols mean I pass the Turning test for understanding Chinese but I do not actually understand Chinese