Introduction: are we just machines?

This chapter focuses on John Searle's famous 'Chinese Room' argument which shows, he thinks, that no robot could possibly understand Chinese or anything else. The 'mind-body problem' has three main divisions: consciousness, intentionality and the relations between physical a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inMind and Body pp. 1 - 28
Main Author Kirk, Robert
Format Book Chapter
LanguageEnglish
Published United Kingdom Routledge 2003
Taylor & Francis Group
Edition1
Subjects
PHILOSOPHY
Elementary Arithmetic
Vice Versa
Chinese Room Argument
Toy Dog
Searle's Argument
Non-conceptual Content
Chinese Room
Suitably Programmed
Wrong Stuff
Ramsey Sentence
Phenomenally Conscious
Sophisticated Robots
Pantomime Horse
Low Voltage Impulses
Lifeless Planet
Machine Code
Mind Body Problem
Turing Machine
Extraterrestrial
Limited Behavioural Repertoire
Robot Reply
Scarecrow
Searle's Chinese Room Argument
Landscape Vocabulary
Systems Reply
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Summary:This chapter focuses on John Searle's famous 'Chinese Room' argument which shows, he thinks, that no robot could possibly understand Chinese or anything else. The 'mind-body problem' has three main divisions: consciousness, intentionality and the relations between physical and psychological explanations. The idea that human beings are machines is mechanism. If it is correct, the relation between the mental and the physical is a lot less mysterious than many people suppose. The machine needs a set of different internal states to ensure that it can 'take account' of the various possible input combinations. Snoopy is a machine without either thoughts or feelings. Although Snoopy certainly has no thoughts or feelings, it has guided us towards some main features of the mind-body problem. However, if a more complex type of robot could have thoughts or even feelings, then the construction of such a robot would seem to solve the mind-body problem at a stroke.
ISBN:190268379X
1902683803
9781902683805
9781902683799
DOI:10.4324/9781315710549-1