1 24.09 Minds and Machines Problem Sets 1-10 Answers Problem Set 1. Assigned 2/17. Due in Recitation 2/24. Answer
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Artificial Intelligence Is Stupid and Causal Reasoning Won't Fix It
Artificial Intelligence is stupid and causal reasoning wont fix it J. Mark Bishop1 1 TCIDA, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK Email: [email protected] Abstract Artificial Neural Networks have reached `Grandmaster' and even `super- human' performance' across a variety of games, from those involving perfect- information, such as Go [Silver et al., 2016]; to those involving imperfect- information, such as `Starcraft' [Vinyals et al., 2019]. Such technological developments from AI-labs have ushered concomitant applications across the world of business, where an `AI' brand-tag is fast becoming ubiquitous. A corollary of such widespread commercial deployment is that when AI gets things wrong - an autonomous vehicle crashes; a chatbot exhibits `racist' behaviour; automated credit-scoring processes `discriminate' on gender etc. - there are often significant financial, legal and brand consequences, and the incident becomes major news. As Judea Pearl sees it, the underlying reason for such mistakes is that \... all the impressive achievements of deep learning amount to just curve fitting". The key, Pearl suggests [Pearl and Mackenzie, 2018], is to replace `reasoning by association' with `causal reasoning' - the ability to infer causes from observed phenomena. It is a point that was echoed by Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis in a recent piece for the New York Times: \we need to stop building computer systems that merely get better and better at detecting statistical patterns in data sets { often using an approach known as \Deep Learning" { and start building computer systems that from the moment of arXiv:2008.07371v1 [cs.CY] 20 Jul 2020 their assembly innately grasp three basic concepts: time, space and causal- ity"[Marcus and Davis, 2019]. -
Is Human Information Processing Conscious?
CommentaryfVelmans: Consciousness The resistance against a natural-science approach to conscious consciousness is required for it. He considers semantic analysis experience reminds one also of the great debate a century ago of novel word combinations, on-line analysis of speech, learn- between Darwinians and creationists. Darwin's opponents ing, memory, identification, planning and control of complex clearly believed they were attacking not a mere scientific hy- novel action, and others, arguing in each case that these things pothesis, but a conception of human nature that would tear away can be done without consciousnessp. (This survey is the bulk of the last remaining shreds of human dignity. The contemporary his paper.) He concludes that there is no type of information resistance by Velmans and others to a straightforward natural- processing for which consciousnessp is required, and therefore science approach to conscious experience may be driven by a that consciousness plays no causal role in and does not "enter similar anxiety. But Darwin did not deprive us of human into" information processing, and is in that sense dignity; treating conscious experience as a normal topic of epiphenomenal.1 psychology and neuroscience will not do so either. The fallacy of this argument is equally simple. Even if Indeed, one can make the opposite argument: that denial of Velmans is right that consciousnessp is not required for any first-person conscious experience in other people may lead to a particular sort of information processing, it does not follow that profound kind of dehumanization. It comes down to saying that consciousness does not causally enter into information process- other people are not capable of joy or suffering, that as far as the ing. -
European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, XII-2 | 2020 Santayana’S Epiphenomenalism Reconsidered 2
European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy XII-2 | 2020 Democracy as a Form of Life Santayana’s Epiphenomenalism Reconsidered Robin Weiss Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/2138 DOI: 10.4000/ejpap.2138 ISSN: 2036-4091 Publisher Associazione Pragma Electronic reference Robin Weiss, « Santayana’s Epiphenomenalism Reconsidered », European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy [Online], XII-2 | 2020, Online since 14 December 2020, connection on 15 December 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/2138 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ ejpap.2138 This text was automatically generated on 15 December 2020. Author retains copyright and grants the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Santayana’s Epiphenomenalism Reconsidered 1 Santayana’s Epiphenomenalism Reconsidered Robin Weiss 1 Recently, it has become increasingly common to question the extent to which Santayana’s philosophy of mind can and should be identified as a kind of epiphenomenalism, as has traditionally been the case. Most scholars take Santayana’s epiphenomenalism for granted, and either assert or deny that he gives an argument to support it.1 However, others have questioned whether the evident similarities between Santayana’s own views and those of modern-day epiphenomenalists obscure more significant differences. I will argue that, indeed, Santayana’s views are potentially inaccurately captured by the term “epiphenomenalism.” However, I shall argue that this is true for reasons other than other scholars have given for this view. 2 The issue turns on what Santayana means by a “cause” when he denies that ideas are causes of action. -
The Thought Experiments Are Rigged: Mechanistic Understanding Inhibits Mentalistic Understanding
Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Philosophy Theses Department of Philosophy Summer 8-13-2013 The Thought Experiments are Rigged: Mechanistic Understanding Inhibits Mentalistic Understanding Toni S. Adleberg Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/philosophy_theses Recommended Citation Adleberg, Toni S., "The Thought Experiments are Rigged: Mechanistic Understanding Inhibits Mentalistic Understanding." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2013. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/philosophy_theses/141 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Philosophy at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS ARE RIGGED: MECHANISTIC UNDERSTANDING INHIBITS MENTALISTIC UNDERSTANDING by TONI ADLEBERG Under the Direction of Eddy Nahmias ABSTRACT Many well-known arguments in the philosophy of mind use thought experiments to elicit intuitions about consciousness. Often, these thought experiments include mechanistic explana- tions of a systems’ behavior. I argue that when we understand a system as a mechanism, we are not likely to understand it as an agent. According to Arico, Fiala, Goldberg, and Nichols’ (2011) AGENCY Model, understanding a system as an agent is necessary for generating the intuition that it is conscious. Thus, if we are presented with a mechanistic description of a system, we will be very unlikely to understand that system as conscious. Many of the thought experiments in the philosophy of mind describe systems mechanistically. I argue that my account of consciousness attributions is preferable to the “Simplicity Intuition” account proposed by David Barnett (2008) because it is more explanatory and more consistent with our intuitions. -
Introduction to Philosophy Fall 2019—Test 3 1. According to Descartes, … A. What I Really Am Is a Body, but I Also Possess
Introduction to Philosophy Fall 2019—Test 3 1. According to Descartes, … a. what I really am is a body, but I also possess a mind. b. minds and bodies can’t causally interact with one another, but God fools us into believing they do. c. cats and dogs have immortal souls, just like us. d. conscious states always have physical causes, but never have physical effects. e. what I really am is a mind, but I also possess a body. 2. Which of the following would Descartes agree with? a. We can conceive of existing without a body. b. We can conceive of existing without a mind. c. We can conceive of existing without either a mind or a body. d. We can’t conceive of mental substance. e. We can’t conceive of material substance. 3. Substance dualism is the view that … a. there are two kinds of minds. b. there are two kinds of “basic stuff” in the world. c. there are two kinds of physical particles. d. there are two kinds of people in the world—those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those that don’t. e. material substance comes in two forms, matter and energy. 4. We call a property “accidental” (as opposed to “essential”) when ... a. it is the result of a car crash. b. it follows from a thing’s very nature. c. it is a property a thing can’t lose (without ceasing to exist). d. it is a property a thing can lose (without ceasing to exist). -
Richard Swinburne's Arguments for Substance Dualism
Richard Swinburne’s arguments for substance dualism. MA by Research in Theology and Religion David Horner September 2018 Richard Swinburne’s arguments for substance dualism. Submitted by David Horner to the University of Exeter as a dissertation for the degree of MA by Research in Theology and Religion in September 2018 This dissertation is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the dissertation may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this dissertation which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. 1 Acknowledgements. I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr Jonathan Hill and Dr Joel Krueger for their support and encouragement in the writing of this dissertation and for their patience in trying to keep me on the straight and narrow. I want to acknowledge the many conversations, on this and other topics, I have had with my friend and philosopher, Dr Chris Boyne, who sadly died in June of this year. I thank all my other chums at The Bull, Ditchling, for listening to my metaphysical ramblings. And finally, I thank my wife, Linda, for once more putting up with this kind of thing. 2 Abstract This dissertation is a contribution to debates in the philosophy of mind and of personal identity. It presents a critical account of arguments for substance dualism to be found in Richard Swinburne’s Mind, Brain, and Free Will (2013). -
Preston, John, & Bishop, Mark
Preston, John, & Bishop, Mark (2002), Views into the Chinese Room: New Essays on Searle and Artificial Intelligence (Oxford: Oxford University Press), xvi + 410 pp., ISBN 0-19-825057-6. Reviewed by: William J. Rapaport Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Department of Philosophy, and Center for Cognitive Science, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-2000; [email protected], http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/ rapaport ∼ This anthology’s 20 new articles and bibliography attest to continued interest in Searle’s (1980) Chinese Room Argument. Preston’s excellent “Introduction” ties the history and nature of cognitive science, computation, AI, and the CRA to relevant chapters. Searle (“Twenty-One Years in the Chinese Room”) says, “purely . syntactical processes of the implemented computer program could not by themselves . guarantee . semantic content . essential to human cognition” (51). “Semantic content” appears to be mind-external entities “attached” (53) to the program’s symbols. But the program’s implementation must accept these entities as input (suitably transduced), so the program in execution, accepting and processing this input, would provide the required content. The transduced input would then be internal representatives of the external content and would be related to the symbols of the formal, syntactic program in ways that play the same roles as the “attachment” relationships between the external contents and the symbols (Rapaport 2000). The “semantic content” could then just be those mind-internal -
Digital Culture: Pragmatic and Philosophical Challenges
DIOGENES Diogenes 211: 23–39 ISSN 0392-1921 Digital Culture: Pragmatic and Philosophical Challenges Marcelo Dascal Over the coming decades, the so-called telematic technologies are destined to grow more and more encompassing in scale and the repercussions they will have on our professional and personal lives will become ever more accentuated. The transforma- tions resulting from the digitization of data have already profoundly modified a great many of the activities of human life and exercise significant influence on the way we design, draw up, store and send documents, as well as on the means used for locating information in libraries, databases and on the net. These changes are transforming the nature of international communication and are modifying the way in which we carry out research, engage in study, keep our accounts, plan our travel, do our shopping, look after our health, organize our leisure time, undertake wars and so on. The time is not far off when miniaturized digital systems will be installed everywhere – in our homes and offices, in the car, in our pockets or even embedded within the bodies of each one of us. They will help us to keep control over every aspect of our lives and will efficiently and effectively carry out multiple tasks which today we have to devote precious time to. As a consequence, our ways of acting and thinking will be transformed. These new winds of change, which are blowing strongly, are giving birth to a new culture to which the name ‘digital culture’ has been given.1 It is timely that a study should be made of the different aspects and consequences of this culture, but that this study should not be just undertaken from the point of view of the simple user who quickly embraces the latest successful inno- vation, in reaction essentially to market forces. -
William James's Objection to Epiphenomenalism
William James’s Objection to Epiphenomenalism Alexander Klein*y James developed an evolutionary objection to epiphenomenalism that is still discussed today. Epiphenomenalists have offered responses that do not grasp its full depth. I thus offer a new reading and assessment of James’s objection. Our life-essential, phenomenal pleasures and pains have three features that suggest that they were shaped by selection, according to James: they are natively patterned, those patterns are systematically linked with antecedent brain states, and the patterns are “universal” among humans. If epiphe- nomenalism were true, phenomenal patterns could not have been selected (because epi- phenomenalism precludes phenomenal consciousness affecting reproductive success). So epiphenomenalism is likely false. 1. Introduction. William James developed an evolutionary objection to epi- phenomenalism that is still regularly discussed today.1 Perhaps because the classic passage where he lays out the objection is so pithy, epiphenomenalists have offered responses that do not, I will argue, grasp its full depth. I begin with a brief history of James’s own encounters with epiphenomenalism. Then I make use of more recent theoretical tools from evolutionary biology to un- pack his worry. *To contact the author, please write to: University Hall 310A, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada; e-mail: [email protected]. yI would like to thank Trevor Pearce and Elisabeth Lloyd for helpful feedback, as well as the US-UK Fulbright Commission, which financially supported this work. 1. More recent advocates of epiphenomenalism have included Jackson (1982) and Rob- inson (2004). An oft-cited successor to James’s argument against epiphenomenalism from evolutionary considerations can be found in Popper and Eccles (1977). -
Santayana's Anticipations of Deleuze: Total Natural Events and Quasi- Pragmatism
Abstract *O B NPOPHSBQI QVCMJTIFE MBTU ZFBS MJU- FSBSZ UIFPSJTU .BSL /PCMF OPUFT UIBU JO UIF XBZ %FMFV[F VOEFSTUBOET UIF SFMB- UJPOTIJQ CFUXFFO NBUFSJBMJTN BOE TVC- KFDUJWJUZ %FMFV[F iBMTP TPVOET DVSJPVTMZ Santayana’s MJLF4BOUBZBOBw'PSFYBNQMF UIFXPSLPG CPUI QIJMPTPQIFST iMPDBUFT IVNBO WBMVF JOBTPVSDFBUPODFJNNBOFOUBOEBMJFOw Anticipations /PCMFBMTPXPOEFSTiXIFUIFSUIFMFTTPOPG 4BOUBZBOBTPXOOFHPUJBUJPOXJUIIJTUFO- of Deleuze: EFODZUPIVNBOJ[FUIFOPOIVNBOHSPVOE PG FYQFSJFODF BMTP BOUJDJQBUFT UIF UISJMM Total Natural %FMFV[FDIBTFTXIFOQPTJUJOHUIFVOJWPD- JUZPGCFJOHw*OUIFQSFTFOUBSUJDMF *XJMM Events and BUUFNQUUPFMBCPSBUFPOUIJTiBOUJDJQBUJPO w UIFJNQMJDBUJPOTPGXIJDIJODMVEFBHSFBUFS Quasi- BQQSFDJBUJPO PG 4BOUBZBOB PO UIF QBSU PG %FMFV[F FOUIVTJBTUT BO VOEFSTUBOEJOH Pragmatism PG CPUI QIJMPTPQIFST BT 64JOìVFODFE Joshua M. Hall &VSPQFBORVBTJQSBHNBUJTUT BOEBEFDJTJPO JOGBWPSPG.JDIBFM#SPESJDLTSFDFOUJOUFS- QSFUBUJPO PG 4BOUBZBOB BT B iUPUBM OBUVSBM FWFOUwQIJMPTPQIFSPGNJOE Keywords: George Santayana, Gilles Deleuze, Essence, Event, Phantasm, Ghost, Epiphenomenalism, Philosophy of Mind, Pragmatism *O UIF QSFTFOU BSUJDMF * IPQF UP BSUJDV- MBUFUISFFJNQPSUBOUJNQMJDBUJPOTPG.BSL /PCMFTSFDFOUPCTFSWBUJPOUIBU%FMFV[FBU UJNFT iTPVOET DVSJPVTMZ MJLF 4BOUBZBOBw1 'JSTU 4BOUBZBOBQSFEBUFTNBOZPG%FMFV[FT NPTU GBNPVT JOTJHIUT ɨVT JO SFHBSE UP UIFJOìVFODFPO%FMFV[FPG64"NFSJDBO UIJOLFST CPUI%FMFV[FBOEIJTJOUFSQSFUFST IBWFCFFOSFNJTTJOGPDVTJOHBMNPTUFYDMV- TJWFMZ PO UIF 1SBHNBUJTUT BOE FTQFDJBMMZ PO$41FJSDF 4FDPOE POFDBOIFMQGVMMZ TRANSACTIONS OF THE CHARLES S. PEIRCE SOCIETY 270 -
Zombie Mouse in a Chinese Room
Philosophy and Technology manuscript No. (will be inserted by the editor) Zombie mouse in a Chinese room Slawomir J. Nasuto · J. Mark Bishop · Etienne B. Roesch · Matthew C. Spencer the date of receipt and acceptance should be inserted later Abstract John Searle's Chinese Room Argument (CRA) purports to demon- strate that syntax is not sucient for semantics, and hence that because com- putation cannot yield understanding, the computational theory of mind, which equates the mind to an information processing system based on formal com- putations, fails. In this paper, we use the CRA, and the debate that emerged from it, to develop a philosophical critique of recent advances in robotics and neuroscience. We describe results from a body of work that contributes to blurring the divide between biological and articial systems: so-called ani- mats, autonomous robots that are controlled by biological neural tissue, and what may be described as remote-controlled rodents, living animals endowed with augmented abilities provided by external controllers. We argue that, even though at rst sight these chimeric systems may seem to escape the CRA, on closer analysis they do not. We conclude by discussing the role of the body- brain dynamics in the processes that give rise to genuine understanding of the world, in line with recent proposals from enactive cognitive science1. Slawomir J. Nasuto Univ. Reading, Reading, UK, E-mail: [email protected] J. Mark Bishop Goldsmiths, Univ. London, UK, E-mail: [email protected] Etienne B. Roesch Univ. Reading, Reading, UK, E-mail: [email protected] Matthew C. -
A Logical Hole in the Chinese Room
Minds & Machines (2009) 19:229–235 DOI 10.1007/s11023-009-9151-9 A Logical Hole in the Chinese Room Michael John Shaffer Received: 27 August 2007 / Accepted: 18 May 2009 / Published online: 12 June 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract Searle’s Chinese Room Argument (CRA) has been the object of great interest in the philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence and cognitive science since its initial presentation in ‘Minds, Brains and Programs’ in 1980. It is by no means an overstatement to assert that it has been a main focus of attention for philosophers and computer scientists of many stripes. It is then especially interesting to note that relatively little has been said about the detailed logic of the argument, whatever significance Searle intended CRA to have. The problem with the CRA is that it involves a very strong modal claim, the truth of which is both unproved and highly questionable. So it will be argued here that the CRA does not prove what it was intended to prove. Keywords Chinese room Á Computation Á Mind Á Artificial intelligence Searle’s Chinese Room Argument (CRA) has been the object of great interest in the philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence and cognitive science since its initial presentation in ‘Minds, Brains and Programs’ in 1980. It is by no means an overstatement to assert that it has been a main focus of attention for philosophers and computer scientists of many stripes. In fact, one recent book (Preston and Bishop 2002) is exclusively dedicated to the ongoing debate about that argument 20 some years since its introduction.