10 MARKER 2

Question 1

What is the question?

Answer 1

1 (a) Explain why Searle insists that no computer program can ever be a mind. [10]

Question 2

How many paragraphs?

Answer 2

3

Question 3

Outline?

Answer 3

1 - digital computers, syntax vs semantics - 5
2 - Chinese room - 5
3 - biological naturalism - 2

Question 4

How many in 1?

Answer 4

5

Question 5

How many in 2?

Answer 5

5

Question 6

How many in 3?

Answer 6

4

Question 7

1

Answer 7

• In chapter 2, the beginning of which is this passage, Searle put forward and justifies refutation of the view that “the brain is just a digital computer and the mind is just a computer program”
• Searle later in the chapter defines a “digital computer” (as opposed to the broader concept of computation) as a machine whose “operations can be specified purely formally”, meaning that it has no subjective content
• whereas as it has been stated before, Searle believes that the human mind is irreducible to its physical, formal processes of neuronic firing as it has subjective, intentional, conscious experiences with causal power- making minds semantical
• Searle insists that this feature of being semantical marks minds out from digital computers qualitatively
• moreover, no progress in the sophistication of digital computers will bridge the crucial gap between semantics and syntax, and so Searle insists that no computer can ever be a mind in the future regardless of whatever progress in technology

Question 8

2

Answer 8

• Searle uses the thought-experiment of the Chinese room to illustrate the reasoning of his rejection of what Searle refers to as “this view – I call it ‘strong artificial intelligence’”, that “the mind is to the brain, as the program is to the computer hardware”, instead arguing that there is a qualitative difference between our “mental processes” and the “the functioning of digital computers”
• in the TE he is in a room, receiving inputs of Chinese characters, and following a rule book to sort Chinese characters and then send them out of the room, and having a fluent conversation with a Chinese speaker who believes him to be a native speaker, despite him having no understanding of what the symbols mean or awareness that he is having a conversation at all
• Searle uses the Chinese room specifically to shed light on what he feels to be missing from “the functioning of digital computers”, and which he feels is overlooked by proponents of strong AI- that mental processes are subjective, intentional experiences whereas computers deal solely in formal symbols
• Moreover Searle argues that even the most advanced computer imaginable that can pass any test of intelligence from an external observer is still not a mind, including here the Turing Test (the test of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour indistinguishable from that of a human)
• This is as the external observer cannot observe the subjective experience of mental phenomena, and this subjective experience is the decisive measure of mental processes

Question 9

3

Answer 9

• Searle rather holds to ‘biological naturalism’ – the view that “mental processes” are ‘higher level features’ which are caused by “brain processes”, which he claims is the “commonsense answer to the question, given what we know about how the world works”,
• as the overwhelming contemporary consensus among neuroscience since the 1960s (when MRI was first discovered) is that mental phenomena are caused by neuronic firing in the brain
• although there is nothing more than the physical brain and its neuronic firings- making up the “brain processes”, the mental phenomena are also ‘realised in the structure’ and so are ‘systemic properties’ of the brain,
• and yet as they are subjective, intentional, and bring about consciousness and causation, these mental phenomena are not reducible to the physical behaviour of the brain

Question 10

quotes in 1

Answer 10

1 - “the brain is just a digital computer and the mind is just a computer program”
2 - Searle later in the chapter defines a “digital computer” “operations can be specified purely formally”

Question 11

quotes in 2

Answer 11

1 - “this view – I call it ‘strong artificial intelligence’”, that “the mind is to the brain, as the program is to the computer hardware”, instead arguing that there is a qualitative difference between our “mental processes” and the “the functioning of digital computers”
3 - on what he feels to be missing from “the functioning of digital computers”

Question 12

quotes in 3

Answer 12

1 - the view that “mental processes” are ‘higher level features’ which are caused by “brain processes”, which he claims is the “commonsense answer to the question, given what we know about how the world works”
2 - making up the “brain processes”

Question 13

1 overview

Answer 13

refutation
definition digital
semantical
qualitative difference
technological progress

Question 14

2 overview

Answer 14

rejection argument
TE
what's missing
advancement observer
external observer

Question 15

3 overview

Answer 15

biological naturalism
consensus
physical
irreducible