Essay about Mind And Machine - 2428 Words

Mind and Machine: The Essay Technology has traditionally evolved as the result of human needs. Invention, when prized and rewarded, will invariably rise-up to meet the free market demands of society. It is in this realm that Artificial Intelligence research and the resultant expert systems have been forged. Much of the material that relates to the field of Artificial Intelligence deals with human psychology and the nature of consciousness. Exhaustive debate on consciousness and the possibilities of consciousnessness in machines has adequately, in my opinion, revealed that it is most unlikely that we will ever converse or interract with a machine of artificial consciousness. In John Searles collection of lectures, Minds, Brains and†¦show more content†¦Proposition four is where the ends will meet the means. It purports that when we are able to finally understand the brain, we will be able to duplicate its functions. Thus, if we replicate the computational power of the mind, we will then understand it. Through argument and experimentation, Searle is able to refute or severely diminish these propositions. Searle argues that machines may well be able to quot;understandquot; syntax, but not the semantics, or meaning communicated thereby. Esentially, he makes his point by citing the famous quot;Chinese Room Thought Experiment.quot; It is here he demonstrates that a quot;computerquot; (a non-chinese speaker, a book of rules and the chinese symbols) can fool a native speaker, but have no idea what he is saying. By proving that entities dont have to understand what they are processing to appear as understanding refutes proposition one. Proposition two is refuted by the simple fact that there are no artificial minds or mind-like devices. Proposition two is thus a matter of science fiction rather than a plausible theory A good chess program, like my (as yet undefeated) Chessmaster 4000 Trubo refutes proposition three by passing a Turing test. It appears to be intelligent, but I know it beats me through number crunching and symbol manipulation. The Chessmaster 4000 example is also an adequate refutation of Professor Simons fourth proposition: quot;you can understand a process if you can reproduceShow MoreRelatedThe Mind And Machines, An Oxymoron?1365 Words   |  6 PagesMinds and Machines, an oxymoron? Can machines think? This question, addressed by Descartes and Turing, leads to discussion of how thought is constructed and what is the mind made of. At the heart of the debate, there is a schism between Cartesian dualism and functionalism. Language is a method considered by both sides as evidence of thought and provides the test for intelligence. 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