poM Flashcards
In “Superintelligent AI and the postbiological cosmos approach,” Schneider says that
“the question of whether SAI is conscious is key to how we should value
postbiological existence.”
(a) Explain how Schneider defines superintelligent AI. [2 points]
(b) Explain how Schneider defines the control problem. [2 points]
(c) Reconstruct Schneider’s argument for the conclusion that how we ought to value
postbiological existence depends on whether superintelligent AI is conscious, and
evaluate whether or not, and how this argument is convincing. [6 points]
(a) Explain the main point Lewis makes in his “Mad pain and Martian pain.” [3
points]
(b) Describe the argument Lewis develops to make that point. [4 points]
(c) Evaluate whether or not, and how Lewis’s argument is convincing. [3 points]
(a) Define what the computational theory of mind says. [1 point]
(b) Describe the silicon chip replacement thought experiment, and reconstruct it in
the “standard form” (premises and conclusion) [4 points]
(c) Evaluate whether or not, and how the silicon chip replacement thought
experiment is convincing. [5 points]
(a) Define multiple realizability and give one (prima facie) plausible example of
multiple realization. [3 points]
(bi) Define type-identity theory. [1 point]
(bii) Define functionalism. [1 point]
(c) Explain the relevance of multiple realizability for whether or not type-identity
theory is true, and for whether or not functionalism is true. [5 points]
(a) Distinguish three different kinds of claims behaviourists make. [3 points]
(b) Describe the difference between “psychological behaviourism” and
“philosophical behaviourism” [3 points]
(c) Describe the Geach-Chisholm objection to behaviourism, explicitly stating which
one of the three behaviourists’ claims this objection is meant to target. [4 points]
(a) Explain the problem of other minds. [3 points]
(b) Describe and critically assess two general strategies for addressing the problem
of other minds. [5 points]
(c) Define folk psychology. [2 points]
(a) Define idealism, explaining which views about the mind-body problem it rules
out and why. [3 points]
(b) Reconstruct the third objection to idealism considered by Vasubandhu and
Vasubandhu’s reply. [4 points]
(c) In presenting this objection and Vasubandhu’s reply, Bronwyn Finnigan says that
“there is a question-begging and nonquestion-begging way to pose this objection…
and reply to it.” Explain what Finnigans means here. [3 points]
(a) Define epiphenomenalism in light of a simple of example of properties that are causally efficacious and properties that are not. [3 points]
(b) Describe one of the three arguments Frank Jackson’s Epiphenomenal Qualia presents for “holding that a quale like the hurtfulness of a pain must be causally efficacious in the physical world.” [3 points]
(c) Explain how Jackson replies to the argument you have described. [4 points]
a
(a) Define qualia. [1 point]
(b) Define physicalism. [1 point]
(c) Reconstruct the inverted spectrum argument in the “standard form”, i.e. in the
form numbered premises and conclusion. [4 points]
(cii) Focus on one of the premises of the inverted spectrum argument and describe
one objection to it. [4 points]
(a) Define property dualism. [2 points]
(b) Reconstruct the knowledge argument in the “standard form”, i.e., in the form
numbered premises and conclusion. [4 points]
(c) Focus on one of the premises of the knowledge argument and explain one sort of
complaint philosophers of mind hade made about it. [4 points]
(a) Explain what substance dualism says, and explain which positions on the mind-
body problem substance dualism is inconsistent with and why. [3 points]
(b) State the principle of the indiscernibility of the identicals, and explain how it is
relevant to substance dualism. [3 points]
(c) Explain how appealing to the indiscernibility of the identicals to argue for
substance dualism can involve an intensional fallacy. [4 points]
