Consciousness in the Mind versus the Computer: Searle’s Argument
There is a view in philosophy that the brain and artificial intelligence are one in the same thing, this theory is called Computational Theory of Mind. It proposes that the human mind is an information processing system, thinking is just computing because the theory also says that the brain is just a computing machine. One philosopher Searle calls this “strong artificial intelligence,” or A1. The consequence to this view is that the mind is not biological, the mind is only the program’s result that the brain runs as a computer. A program is a description of algorithms that produce outputs based on inputs. These inputs require mental representations because it comes in forms of symbols or representations of objects. A computer can only compute the representation of an object, but it cannot compute the actual object itself.
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I think this criticism signifies that it does not matter whether or not the person understands Chinese, this is beside the point, it only matters that the system as a whole understands. In fact I think the criticism is saying the human being has no significance at all, he/she is just the “central processing unit.” If the system can display understanding of Chinese, then it would indeed have to understand Chinese. Searle could actually be contradicting himself in saying the system can speak Chinese but not understand …show more content…
He would then be the whole system, yet still not understand Chinese because “there is no way that the system can get from the syntax to the semantics” (Searle 680). The point Searle is making is that it does not matter how advanced technology is or how fast a computer can calculate, a computer can only be defined syntactically.
In conclusion, I believe Searle makes an argument against the line of criticism because it seems ridiculous to say that a person does not understand Chinese yet the combination of the person with a pen and paper can. A computer simulation is just that, it just replicates the symbols installed into it to give a reasonable answer to a question it already knows the syntax
However, advancements in the field made it possible to better understand that not only was psychology more complex than concepts of consciousness, but also that there were many other mental aspects at play. Consciousness has since been redefined to express the idea of awareness – both of personal being and the environment that exists around it. It is through cognitive neuroscience, which is the study of the brain in relation to its mental processes, that scientists can better understand the level of consciousness. Knowing how the body reacts at various levels, what human control exists in each and how they contribute to the activities of the brain can likely explain a lot about human behavior. Within cognitive neuroscience, the latest research is able to the show the ways in which brain activity centered on imagined thoughts, personal ideals and concepts and the inner working of this organ direct behavior among individuals of varying backgrounds and physical
The internet is one of the most powerful and complex pieces of technology ever to be assembled. With this power, the internet can radiate some seismic waves into the way we live our lives. In “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, he illustrates and explains his personal opinion and evidence from others to display the changes and effects the internet has on the world and the people in it. He goes into and explains how the internet is changing the way we read and take in information using his own personal experience with reading books today. He also shows that the internet itself is causing the world to change and adapt to its presence, causing essentially any aspect of the world to be engulfed by the internet and transform according
He suggests humans have more controlling over machines. He supports his thought by referring to computers in chess that “the computer has no intuition at all, it analyzes the game using brute force [and] inspects the pieces currently on the board, then calculates all options” (Thompson 343). He points out that the way computer thinks is “fundamentally unhuman” and it is the player who runs the program and decides which moves to take (Thompson 343). After all, computers are just tools that we use to optimize accuracy and
Carr noticed that theories have stated that human’s brains stop adapting at a certain point (31). The brain is not trapped; it never stops adapting to new experiences. This scientific notion is important to Carr’s philosophy because our brains are constantly changing. Using neuroplasticity as an example gives him the opportunity to show that life is about having a deep effect, not on our brains, but the way we think. Carr adds, “neuroplasticity provides an escape from genetic determinism, a loophole for free thought and free will, it also imposes its own form of determinism on our behavior.
He argues that machines can simply match an input with an output, but this does not indicate that there is any understanding (4). This can be further explained as Searle illustrates the simulation of a person being given Chinese characters to view with no knowledge whatsoever of the language. The person is given another set of Chinese writing with instructions in English that help respond to the first batch of writing and for these responses to be returned. Although the responses written by the person are synonymous to what a native Chinese speaker would deem to be correct, this does not mean the person understands Chinese, but merely the instructions in English directed the person allows them to generate viable responses. Searle continues with stating that understanding requires intentionality and machines may have calculating capacities, but may not have their own intrinsic intention that reflect mental states (11).
I strongly agree with his perspective regarding this subject, an individual can be able to use language perfectly but still not make sense. I, also liked how he stated in the article, "remember this is speech not writing." Additionally, Paul Gee states how one can not teach
In Google’s eyes “the human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive” and Carr is afraid that we will become machinelike as if
Conclusion: The mind is substantively different from the body and indeed matter in general. Because in this conception the mind is substantively distinct from the body it becomes plausible for us to doubt the intuitive connection between mind and body. Indeed there are many aspects of the external world that do not appear to have minds and yet appear none the less real in spite of this for example mountains, sticks or lamps, given this we can begin to rationalize that perhaps minds can exist without bodies, and we only lack the capacity to perceive them.
Today the media is all around. It is hard for people to think for themselves without the media’s influence. People increasingly depend on the media, especially the Internet, to gain information. In Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making us Stupid,” he argues that the Internet is decreasing our individual intelligence, changing our thought processes, and altering the way we take in and retain information. Since technology has been around, humans have been devoted to spend the majority of their time surfing the web or going from link to link.
In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, Nicholas Carr tries to point out that as the internet becomes more of our primary source of information, Carr claims that the internet well affect how the human brain process information. In the article Carr tries to explain what he means by using a scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey where HAL (the supercomputer) is being Disassembled but the man the machine nearly killed. Carr focuses his attention on the fact that the computer is starting to ‘feel’ its “brain” being taken away as the man takes his memory circuits. Nicholas then goes in to set this place into his theory to the reader.
Based upon the analysis, Parnas’ article is geared more towards people involved in the field of Artificial Intelligence where Eldridge’s article is geared towards people who are not necessarily knowledgeable about Artificial Intelligence yet are interested to learn more about the topic. Throughout the article, Parnas maintains the skeptical attitude towards Artificial Intelligence, literally ending with “Devices that use heuristics to create the illusion of Intelligence present a risk we should not accept” (Parnas, 6). Eldridge on the other hand, maintains a positive attitude throughout the article despite the shortcomings of AI. Together, both authors provide compelling arguments for and against Artificial
In Alan Turing’s paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence, he proposes a thought experiment that would eventually be tested, and even later be beaten. He describes an experiment where a man and a woman are in two different rooms and an outside observer has to guess at the sexes of the participants. He then suggests that one of the participants be replaced with a computer. Once humanity is unable to tell the difference and will guess that the computer is human at the same rate that it will guess that it is a machine will answer Turing’s thesis of, “Can machines think?’ (434).
They say that mental processes are the same thing as brain processes. This gives us a better explanatory role with causation regarding mental states. According to the identity theory, the “Mind” and the “Brain” refer to one object (the physical brain). (Anthony Oyowe, personal
The Turing test has become the most widely accepted test of artificial intelligence and the most influential. There are also considerable arguments that the Turing test is not enough to confirm intelligence. Legg and Hutter (2007) cite Block (1981) and Searle (1980) as arguing that a machine may appear intelligent by using a very large set of
Artificial Intelligence is the field within computer science to explain some aspects of the human thinking. It includes aspects of intelligence to interact with the environment through sensory means and the ability to make decisions in unforeseen circumstances without human intervention. The beginnings of modern AI can be traced to classical philosophers' attempts to describe human thinking as a symbolic system. MIT cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky and others who attended the conference