Many of the things that we try to explain, in both our common sense and our scientific engagement with the world, are capable of being explained more or less finely: that is, with greater or lesser attention to the detail of the producing mechanism. A natural assumption, pervasive if not always explicit, is that other things being equal, the more finegrained an explanation, the better. Thus, Jon Elster, who also thinks there are instrumental reasons for wanting a more fine-grained explanation, (...) assumes that in any case the mere fact of getting nearer the detail of production makes such an explanation intrinsically superior: “a more detailed explanation is also an end in itself”. Michael Taylor agrees: “A good explanation should be, amongst other things, as fine-grained as possible.”. (shrink)

Fodor advocates a view of cognitive processes as computations defined over the language of thought (or Mentalese). Even among those who endorse Mentalese, considerable controversy surrounds its representational format. What semantically relevant structure should scientific psychology attribute to Mentalese symbols? Researchers commonly emphasize logical structure, akin to that displayed by predicate calculus sentences. To counteract this tendency, I discuss computational models of navigation drawn from probabilistic robotics. These models involve computations defined over cognitive maps, which have geometric rather than logical (...) structure. They thereby demonstrate the possibility of rational cognitive processes in an exclusively non-logical representational medium. Furthermore, they offer much promise for the empirical study of animal navigation. (shrink)

This paper addresses a problem about epistemic warrant. The problem is posed by philosophical arguments for externalism about the contents of thoughts, and similarly by philosophical arguments for architecturalism about thinking, when these arguments are put together with a thesis of first person authority. In each case, first personal knowledge about our thoughts plus the kind of knowledge that is provided by a philosophical argument seem, together, to open an unacceptably ‘non-empirical’ route to knowledge of empirical facts. Furthermore, this unwelcome (...) prospect of transferring a ‘non-empirical’ warrant from premises about our own mental states and about philosophical theory to a conclusion about external environment or internal architecture seems to depend upon little more than the possibility of knowledge by inference. (The use of the scare-quoted term ‘non-empirical’ is explained a couple of paragraphs further on.). (shrink)

This paper sketches a causal account of scientific explanation designed to sustain the judgment that high-level, detail-sparse explanations—particularly those offered in biology—can be at least as explanatorily valuable as lower-level counterparts. The motivating idea is that complete explanations maximize causal economy: they cite those aspects of an event’s causal run-up that offer the biggest-bang-for-your-buck, by costing less (in virtue of being abstract) and delivering more (in virtue making the event stable or robust).

One trend in recent work on topic of the multiple realization of psychological properties has been an emphasis on greater sensitivity to actual science and greater clarity regarding the metaphysics of realization and multiple realization. One contribution to this trend is Bechtel and Mundale’s examination of the implications of brain mapping for multiple realization. Where Bechtel and Mundale argue that studies of brain mapping undermine claims about the multiple realization, this paper challenges that argument.

The standard interpretation of the imitation game is defended over the rival gender interpretation though it is noted that Turing himself proposed several variations of his imitation game. The Turing test is then justified as an inductive test not as an operational definition as commonly suggested. Turing's famous prediction about his test being passed at the 70% level is disconfirmed by the results of the Loebner 2000 contest and the absence of any serious Turing test competitors from AI on the (...) horizon. But, reports of the death of the Turing test and AI are premature. AI continues to flourish and the test continues to play an important philosophical role in AI. Intelligence attribution, methodological, and visionary arguments are given in defense of a continuing role for the Turing test. With regard to Turing's predictions one is disconfirmed, one is confirmed, but another is still outstanding. (shrink)

Recent worries about possible epiphenomenalist consequences of nonreductive materialism are misplaced, not, as many have argued, because nonreductive materialism does not have epiphenomenalist implications but because the epiphenomenalist implications are actually virtues of the theory, rather than vices. It is only by showing how certain kinds of mental properties are causally impotent that cognitive scientific explanations of mentality as we know them are possible.

Searle has recently used two adaptations of his Chinese room argument in an attack on connectionism. I show that these new forms of the argument are fallacious. First I give an exposition of and rebuttal to the original Chinese room argument, and then a brief introduction to the essentials of connectionism.

In this chapter, I shall be examining an argument for the language of thought hypothesis.

In his PhD thesis (1938) Turing introduced what he described as 'a new kind of machine'. He called these 'O-machines'. The present paper employs Turing's concept against a number of currently fashionable positions in the philosophy of mind.

The test Turing proposed for machine intelligence is usually understood to be a test of whether a computer can fool a human into thinking that the computer is a human. This standard interpretation is rejected in favor of a test based on the Imitation Game introduced by Turing at the beginning of "Computing Machinery and Intelligence.".

Fodor and others who think that scientific, computational psychology will vindicate commonsense belief-desire psychology have maintained that belief can be identified with the explicit storage of a token with appropriate content. I review and develop problems for the explicit storage view and show that a more plausible account identifies belief with the disposition to use a token with appropriate content in explicit reasoning and planning processes and as a basis for action. I argue that this type of inner disposition account (...) will also apply to most other common sense attitudes. The result is a realism about commonsense belief-desire psychology that is more modest than Fodor's: While such inner dispositions probably do exist, these states will probably not be the main focus of scientific psychological theories. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza el Test de Turing, uno de los métodos más famosos y controvertidos para evaluar la existencia de vida mental en la Filosofía de la Mente, revelando dos mitos filosóficos comúnmente aceptados y criticando su dogma. En primer lugar, se muestra por qué Turing nunca propuso una definición de inteligencia. En segundo lugar, se refuta que el Test de Turing involucre condiciones necesarias o suficientes para la inteligencia. En tercer lugar, teniendo presente el objetivo y el tipo de (...) evidencia que recopila, se considera si el Test de Turing cuenta como un experimento científico a la luz de la concepción de Fodor. Finalmente, se argumenta que Turing simpatiza con una forma de Conductismo, confundiendo la simulación -un proceso epistémico que, gobernado por la verosimilitud, es eficaz cuando alguien es causado a creer que el computador es inteligente- con la duplicación de la inteligencia en cuanto propiedad, lo que ocurre a nivel ontológico. Tal confusión implica un dogma y explica por qué, a pesar de haber sido propuesto como una solución final a la problemática de si las máquinas programadas piensan, el Test de Turing ha tenido precisamente el efecto contrario en más de cinco décadas, estimulando el debate filosófico en torno a la naturaleza de lo mental. (shrink)

Individualism is the doctrine that the state of one's mind is entirely dependent on the state of one's body (or some proper part thereof (e.g., the central nervous system)). It has come under attack from Burge, Baker, and others. This paper seeks to cut off one ore attempt to defend individualism, namely, the claim that experience, at least, in individualistic.

In recent years, a number of well-known intentional realists have focused their energy on attempts to provide a naturalized theory of mental representation. What tends to be overlooked, however, is that a naturalized theory of mental representation will not, by itself, salvage intentional realism. Since most naturalistic properties play no interesting causal role, intentional realists must also solve the problem of showing how intentional properties , even if naturalized, could be causally efficacious. Because of certain commitments, this problem is especially (...) difficult for intentional realists such as Fodor. In the current paper I focus on the problem as it arises for such realists, and I argue that the best-known solution proposed to date is inadequate. If what I say is correct, then such intentional realists are left with an additional and substantial problem, and one that has generally not been sufficiently appreciated. (shrink)

En este trabajo examino cómo el Funcionalismo de Máquina de Turing resulta compatible con una forma de dualismo, lo que aleja a la IA clásica o fuerte del materialismo que la inspiró originalmente en el siglo XIX. Para sostener esta tesis, argumento que efectivamente existe una notable cercanía entre el pensamiento cartesiano y dicho funcionalismo, ya que el primero afirma que es concebible/posible separar mente y cuerpo, mientras que el segundo sostiene que no es estrictamente necesario que los estados mentales (...) se realicen en las propiedades físicas de engranajes y máquinas reales. This article deals with how Turing Machine Functionalism turns out to be compatible with a form of Dualism, which involves that strong AI is not close to the original Materialism that inspired it in the nineteenth century. To support this thesis, I argue that there is a compelling coincidence between Descartes' philosophy and this version of Functionalism, since the former holds that it is conceivable/possible to separate mind and body, while the latter holds that it is not strictly necessary that mental states are realized by the physical properties of real cogs and machines. (shrink)

In this essay I analyse Wittgenstein’s criticism of several assumptions that are crucial for a large part of cognitive science. These involve the concepts of computational processes in the brain which cause mental states and processes, the algorithmic processing of information in the brain , the brain as a machine, psychophysical parallelism, the thinking machine, as well as the confusion of rule following with behaviour in accordance with the rule. In my opinion, the theorists of cognitive science have not yet (...) seriously considered Wittgenstein’s criticism so they, quite surprisingly, frequently confuse the question “how does it work?” with “what does it do?” But their most “deleterious” mistake is their confusion of the internal computational processes taking place in the brain with socially-based, everyday criteria of recognition and classification of, and knowledge about, the content of mental states. (shrink)

I analyze Wittgenstein’s criticism of several assumptions that are crucial for a large part of cognitive science. These involve the concepts of computational processes in the brain which cause mental states and processes, the algorithmic processing of information in the brain (neural system), the brain as a machine, psycho physical parallelism, the thinking machine, as well as the confusion of rule following with behavior in accordance with the rule. In my opinion, the theorists of cognitive science have not yet seriously (...) considered Wittgenstein’s criticism so they, quite surprisingly, frequently confuse the question “how does it work?” with “what does it do?” But their most “deleterious” mistake is their confusion of the internal computational (or parallel) processes taking place in the brain (which possibly cause mental states) with socially-based, everyday criteria of recognition and classification of, and knowledge about, the content of mental states. (shrink)

In diesem Essay analysiert der Autor Wittgensteins Kritik an einigen Annahmen, die für einen Großteil der Kognitionswissenschaft von zentraler Bedeutung sind. Diese umfassen die Konzepte von komputationalen Prozessen im Gehirn, die mentale Zustände und Prozesse hervorbringen, die algorythmische Informationsprozessierung im Gehirn , das Gehirn als Maschine, den psychophysischen Parallelismus, die Denkmaschine sowie die Konfusion der Regel, die dem Benehmen folgt im Einklang mit dieser Regel. Nach des Autors Meinung haben die Theoretiker der Kognitionswissenschaft Wittgensteins Kritik noch immer nicht ernsthaft erörtert, (...) so dass sie, was verwundern mag, häufig die Frage „Wie funktioniert das?“ mit der Frage „Was macht das?“ verwechseln. Doch ihr „verhängnisvollster“ Fehler besteht in der Verwechslung interner komputationaler Prozesse, die im Gehirn stattfinden mit sozialbegründeten, alltäglichen Kriterien des Erkennens und der Klassifizierung des Inhalts und des Wissens vom Inhalt mentaler Zustände. (shrink)

Este trabajo examina si la pregunta “¿puede pensar una máquina?” ha sido respondida de manera satisfactoria. La primera sección, justamente, examina el dictum cartesiano según el cual una máquina no puede pensar en principio. La segunda trata sobre una rebelión en contra de Descartes, encabezada por Babbage. A su vez, la tercera describe una segunda rebelión encabezada por Turing. En ambas se examina, primero el lenguaje mentalista/instrumentalista para describir a una máquina programada y segundo, el reemplazo de la pregunta por (...) el Juego de la Imitación. En la cuarta sección sostengo que la evidencia aportada por dicho juego nos devuelve a la pregunta, pese a Turing. Por último, la quinta sección versa sobre cómo la Habitación China de Searle, paradójicamente, apoya el dictum cartesiano, y lo hace porque tal experimento mental se basa en una capacidad mental falible: la introspección. Se concluye que la pregunta acerca de si puede pensar una máquina es derivada de otra pregunta filosófica compleja: la de la naturaleza de lo mental y el problema mente-cuerpo. (shrink)