Minds, brains, programs

Question 1

Searle’s objection to Turing

Answer 1

Searle’s focus:
Simulating human behavior sufficient for thinking

In the thought experiment - John Searle is put in a room, with a book with all kinds of rules, he’s handed sheets of paper that have unfamiliar symbols with them on - the rule book shows how to translate these unfamiliar symbols, and with a blank sheet of paper, he writes a new string of symbols, and he hands these new string of symbols to the people outside the room
What Searle realizes that he doesn’t know the symbols is Mandarin, and the book is what passes the Turing test, in Chinese
In this example, John Searle is taking on the role of the computer, following a program without understanding what it means

Searle on Strong AI
Searle is talking about can machines understand
Searle rejects that simulating the behavior of understanding is sufficient for actually understanding - he calls this view Strong AI

Strong AI: following the right program is sufficient for understanding - in the sense of logical strength, goes way out there, of following the program and simulating the behavior of someone with understanding is sufficient for understanding.
Compare: (i) Simulating human behavior sufficient for thinking
If two computers made of different hardware are running the same program, they are producing the same behavior

Question 2

Alan Turing - Turing test

Answer 2

Alan Turing - mathematician, cryptanalyst, computer scientist
He wrote a philosophy paper - The Imitation Game - the title of a movie, it’s come to be known as the Turing test

• the test for whether a computer was capable of genuine thought and understanding
• You have some tester, a person, and they interact with two individuals through text messages, one is a human being, and the other is a computer trying to convince you that they are a human being
• If the robot can fool people into thinking they’re a human being, then the computer has a genuine understanding and can really understand what I’m saying, and they are thinking about it, and then responding

Turing’s argument
Can machines think, he says they can eventually

1. Computers will pass the Turing test - not a philosophical claim, it’s a prediction
2. Passing the Turing test = computers think
3. Therefore, computers will think

Searle rejects 2, because being able to act like a human being, does not mean you are able to think and understand as a human being does

Question 3

behaviourism

Answer 3

Behaviourism - Mental states are behavioural dispositions

The behaviourist says that mental states such as beliefs and emotions are behavioural dispositions, they are tendancies to engage in the behaviour that is characteristics of those mental states
Eg. If I’m in an irritable mood, I’m disposed to act like someone who is irritable

Question 4

objection to Behaviourism: pain hurts

Answer 4

Objection to behaviourism: pain hurts
Yes there are behavioural dispositions someone has when they are in pain, but that’s not what pain is, pain doesn’t only involve people moving their bodies in ways that we expect, but there’s that metaphorical red glow of pain that goes beyond the way we act when we are in pain

Feeling an itch is not the same as having the disposition to scratch
we’re leaving out the feeling of having an itch

Question 5

Supervenience

Answer 5

Supervenience
Suppose we have two paintings
One of them is an original Picasso and the other is an absolute perfect forgery

Are they equally beautiful or is one more beautiful than the other
People would be willing to pay a lot more for the original,

there are some characteristics that supervenes over the way the paint is distributed on the canvas

Beauty supervenes on paint placement - beauty is equal in both
Value does not supervene

A supervenes on B: same B => same A

If you’re a behaviourist, you say mental states are identical to brain states, mental states supervene on behavioural dispositions

Same behaviours does not equal seams mental states - objections to behaviourism

Question 6

Objections to Behaviourism: Same behaviours don’t always equal to Same mental states

Answer 6

Counterexamples to supervenience - the people are showing exactly the same in dispositions, one of them is in pain one of them isn’t, so mental states are not dispositions

Being in pain does not supervene on behaviourism disposition so pain cannot be identical to behavioural dispositions