APA Newsletters NEWSLETTER ON PHILOSOPHY AND COMPUTERS Volume 09, Number 1 Fall 2009 FROM THE EDITOR, PETER BOLTUC FROM THE CHAIR, MICHAEL BYRON NEW AND NOTEWORTHY: A CENTRAL APA INVITATION ARTICLES Featured Article RAYMOND TURNER “The Meaning of Programming Languages” GREGORY CHAITIN “Leibniz, Complexity, and Incompleteness” AARON SLOMAN “Architecture-Based Motivation vs. Reward-Based Motivation” DISCUSSION 1: ON ROBOT CONSCIOUSNESS STAN FRANKLIN, BERNARD J. BAARS, AND UMA RAMAMURTHY “Robots Need Conscious Perception: A Reply to Aleksander and Haikonen” PENTTI O. A. HAIKONEN “Conscious Perception Missing. A Reply to Franklin, Baars, and Ramamurthy” © 2009 by The American Philosophical Association ONTOLOGICAL STATUS OF WEB-BASED OBJECTS DAVID LEECH ANDERSON “A Semantics for Virtual Environments and the Ontological Status of Virtual Objects” ROBERT ARP “Realism and Antirealism in Informatics Ontologies” DISCUSSION 2: ON FLORIDI KEN HEROLD “A Response to Barker” JOHN BARKER “Reply to Herold” DISCUSSION 3: ON LOPES GRANT TAVINOR “Videogames, Interactivity, and Art” ONLINE EDUCATION MARGARET A. CROUCH “Gender and Online Education” H. E. BABER “Women Don’t Blog” BOOK REVIEW Christian Fuchs: Social Networking Sites and the Surveillance Society. A Critical Case Study of the Usage of studiVZ, Facebook, and MySpace by Students in Salzburg in the Context of Electronic Surveillance REVIEWED BY SANDOVAL MARISOL AND THOMAS ALLMER SYLLABUS DISCUSSION AARON SLOMAN “Teaching AI and Philosophy at School?” CALL FOR PAPERS Call for Papers with Ethics Information Technology on “The Case of e-Trust: A New Ethical Challenge” APA NEWSLETTER ON Philosophy and Computers Piotr Bołtuć, Editor Fall 2009 Volume 09, Number 1 The second topic area pertains to L. Floridi’s view on ROM THE DITOR information ethics as ethics tout court (Floridi, T. Baynum, et F E al.). In the current issue we have a follow up on this discussion in K. Herold’s critique of J. Barker’s position and Barker’s spirited response. Piotr Bołtuć The third major topic-area is ontology of artificial objects. University of Illinois at Springfield We started this conversation with the question of the ontological status of artifacts (Baker, Thomasson, et al.). In the current A bloc of three important articles opens the current issue; they issue we focus on the ontological status of web-based objects may be a little more formal than what some of our readers in thought provoking papers by D. L. Anderson and R. Arp. have come to expect. We are glad to feature an article by R. Anderson tackles directly the issue of the ontological status of Turner, who asks what the meaning and the subject matter objects that function in virtual environments, such as The World of a programming language is. He argues for a somewhat of Warcraft and Second Life. The paper builds, impressively, on unconventional view that denotation of a programming a rare combination of competencies in analytical ontology and language boils down to mathematical objects. No doubt familiarity with virtual environments. Arp tries to bridge the gap Turner’s elegant, formally sophisticated article will spark a lively between the understandings of ontology in informatics and debate on some central philosophical topics. philosophy. Philosophers will find an informative presentation The two articles that follow—both by prominent computer of formal ontologies (primarily domain ontologies) used in IT scientists—engage in a dialogue with major philosophers of the while information scientists may find the standard arguments for past. G. Chaitin builds an argument pertaining to the complexity ontological realism, the view which seems underrepresented theory in constant dialogue with Leibniz. Chaitin claims that in their discipline. “Leibniz’s ideas on complexity lead to a place where math * seems to have no structure, none that we will ever be able to perceive.” As a part of his interesting and lively argument Chaitin The second part of this Newsletter is by far less analytical; we touches on the incompleteness theorem, the halting problem, have one phenomenological, two feminist, and one Marxist and a number of other topics. paper, if those stickers mean anything anymore. We are pleased to continue the conversation about aesthetics and computers A. Sloman refers to Hume so as to carefully carve a so aptly started by Lopes and Matravers, which we have theoretical niche for his main thesis that “an organism (human undertaken in conjunction with ASA. In the current issue G. or non-human) or machine may have…motive whose existence Tavinor focuses on the various senses of interactivity in art and is merely a product of the operation of a motive-generating whether videogames are any special in this regard. mechanism” resulting from evolution, human design, or some contingency. Sloman claims that Hume leaves some room for The two articles on online education and gender issues “reflexes” as an avenue for naturalistic motivations (though were a part of an APA session organized by this committee at they are marginal in humans, and so in Hume’s theory) and the Pacific APA meeting (A. White moderator). M. A. Crouch that what Sloman calls architecture based motivation is such focuses on specificities of gender in online education. It seems a reflex mechanism. that if there is still gender discrimination in the classroom, there is less of it online; on the other hand, there may be ramifications * of getting any education for people who work and take primary I was glad to present the last few issues of this Newsletter at responsibility for their families, predominantly women. H. E. the closing session of the North American Computers and Baber discusses the reasons why women do not blog as much 1 Philosophy conference in Bloomington Indiana recently. I as men. Baber argues that women still have reasons to be more focused on three main topic-areas highlighted in this Newsletter; guarded than men in their impromptu online contributions I also emphasized the role of editor-reviewed, or one-way-blind- since they may be interpreted through a different, largely less reviewed, publications in the life of the profession. favorable lens. A future study could perhaps show why more The main topic-area to which I think this Newsletter has had women than men are present on certain social networking sites, something to contribute lately falls between philosophy of mind such as Twitter. We also have a review-article of a new book and machine consciousness. We started with discussion of the by C. Fuchs on how social networking sites may be used for explanatory gap (G. Harman, Y. Nagasawa, et al.) which then surveillance and other controversial purposes. The author uses gained further momentum when it blended, somewhat, with critical theory, developed by the Frankfurt School, to analyze the the discussion of the role of LIDA for machine consciousness positive and negative aspects of social networking in a broader (I. Aleksander and those mentioned below). I am glad that in socio-economic context. the current issue we have another part of this debate where S. Last, but by far not least, we close this issue with A. Franklin, B. Baars, and U. Ramamurthy respond to their critics Sloman’s long document about teaching AI and philosophy in while P. Haikonen responds back. — APA Newsletter, Fall 2009, Volume 09, Number 1 — schools. The motivation behind this project is the perception, Chair: shared by many teachers and students, that AI is just a helpful Marvin Croy skill with not enough deep theoretical grounding to merit the Papers: treatment as a discipline at the university level. Sloman’s goal is to meet this challenge head on. Ricardo Sanz (Technical University of Madrid): “The Need for a Mind in Control Systems Engeneering” * Piotr Boltuc (University of Illinois at Springfield): “Non-Reductive As always, I want to close by thanking my Dean, as well as Machine Consciousness?” my Department Chair, at the University of Illinois at Springfield for making it possible for me to devote more attention to this Matthias Scheutz (Indiana University–Bloomington): Newsletter than I would have been able to do otherwise. “Architectural Steps Towards Self-Aware Robots” Let me end with a special note. Now when the APA site is Commentators: relatively in order2 I would want to guide the Readers towards Thomas Polger (University of Cincinnati) this Newsletter’s history. The older issues, I think especially John Barker (University of Illinois at Springfield) those edited by Jon Dorbolo,3 will remain an excellent source 2. Special Session Organized by the APA Committee of information about the history of philosophy and computing on Philosophy and Computers, Saturday, February 20 and are still very much worth browsing through. (morning) Endnotes Machines, Intentionality, Ethics and Cognition 1. I want to thank T. Beavers for his impromptu invitation during Chair: my visit there. Peter Boltuc (University of Illinois at Springfield) 2. http://www.apaonline.org/publications/newsletters/ computers.aspx Participants: 3. Jon assembled an excellent team of editors: W. Uzgalis, R. David L. Anderson (Illinois State University–Bloomington): Causey, L. Hinman (as the Internet Resources Editor) and “Why Intentional Machines Must be Moral Agents (or at least R. Barnette (as the Teaching in Cyberspace Editor). See Moral Patients)” http://www.apaonline.org/publications/newsletters/v97n1_ Keith Miller W. (University of Illinois at Springfield): “Truth in Computers_01.aspx Advertising, or Disrespecting Robot Autonomy” Svetoslav Braynov (University of Illinois at Springfield): “Can you Trust a Robot?” Thomas Polger (University of Cincinnati): “Distributed FROM THE CHAIR Computation and Extended Cognition” Closing comments: Michael Byron Ricardo Sanz (Technical University of Madrid) Kent State University The Pacific Division held its 2009 meeting in April in Vancouver, BC. Last fall, the Committee voted to award the Barwise Prize ARTICLES to Terry Bynum of Southern Connecticut State. Unfortunately, the session had to be canceled due to travel issues.