Tags / 14 quotes from 4 sources
#philosophy-of-mind
Beyond Zero and One (Andrew Smart)
The hard problem of consciousness
Many researchers in AI and neuroscience choose not to grapple with what philosopher David Chalmers calls the “hard problem” of consciousness. The hard problem refers to subjective or phenomenal experience. Chalmers argues that solving perception or cognition is easy because we…
Explaining consciousness away
This indifference to consciousness in practical AI research among those who are actually writing code and coming up with algorithms (and for whom, to be absolutely clear, I have a great deal of respect) is inherited from a long tradition in cognitive science and the philosophy…
Are computations real or epistemic tools?
In philosophy, cognitive science, and, more broadly speaking, in computer science, there is a divide between those who believe that computations underlie physical reality—and that human consciousness is made of information, reducible to information, or caused by it—and those…
Dennett's Cartesian Theater and multiple drafts
Dennett does not share the view that consciousness is decomposable. In other words, he thinks that our feeling that we have a unitary conscious experience is an illusion. He calls this feeling the “Cartesian Theater”—the place in the brain where all of the information…
From Encyclopedia To Ontology: Toward Dynamic Representation Of The Discipline Of Philosophy
Classification of ideas according to semantic inheritance relationships
Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of our approach is its classification of ideas according to semantic inheritance relationships holding between the contents of ideas rather than more formal inheritance relationships observed in their types (e.g. social or structural roles)…
Introducing Artificial Intelligence (Henry Brighton and Howard Selina)
Searle does not deny strong AI
It is important to note that Searle is not denying the possibility of Strong Al. Indeed, Searle believes that we are nothing more than complex machines, and therefore we can build machines that think and understand. Searle’s objection is with the notion that machine…
The mystery of conscious machinery
For Searle, the nature of the machinery required for consciousness is a mystery. He makes no claim to have an answer explaining why computers cannot support properties such as understanding and consciousness, but brains can. In contrast, Roger Penrose, a mathematical physicist…
Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle)
We lack a neutral vocabulary for the mental
Now what exactly are these assumptions and why are they false? I cannot tell you that just yet. They do not admit of a quick summary without some preliminary work. The first half of this book is in large part about exposing and overcoming those assumptions. It is hard to…
Dualists and materialists make the same mistake
People who accept the reality and irreducibility of the mental tend to think of themselves as dualists. But to others, accepting an irreducible mental component in reality seems like giving up on the scientific world-view, so they deny the existence of any such mental reality…
The standard views in philosophy of mind are false
I write out of the conviction that the philosophy of mind is the most important subject in contemporary philosophy and that the standard views—dualism, materialism, behaviorism, functionalism, computationalism, eliminativism, epiphenomenalism—are false.
From philosophy of language to philosophy of mind
For most of the twentieth century the philosophy of language was “first philosophy.” Other branches of philosophy were seen as derived from the philosophy of language and dependent on results in the philosophy of language for their solution. The center of attention has now…
Twelve problems in the philosophy of mind
A large part of this book will be concerned with the 12 problems that I have just outlined. If those problems look interesting to you, you are likely to find this book interesting.
Mapping out the problems ahead
What I have tried to do in this chapter is to present the framework for the discussions that will follow. The problems will not be treated as of equal weight. Not by any means. The next three chapters will be largely devoted to the mind-body problem. I have already said what I…
Materialism as the religion of our time
The single most influential family of views in the philosophy of mind throughout the twentieth century and leading into the twenty-first century is one version or another of materialism. Materialism is the view that the only reality that exists is material or physical reality…