The way people come to report private stimulation arising within their own bodies is not well understood. Although the Darwinian assumption of biological continuity has been the basis of extensive animal modeling for many human biological and behavioral phenomena, few have attempted to model human communication based on private stimulation. This target article discusses such an animal model using concepts and methods derived from the study of discriminative stimulus effects of drugs and recent research on interanimal communication. We discuss how (...) humans acquire the capacity to identify and report private stimulation and we analyze intra- and interspecies differences in neurochemical mechanisms for transducing interoceptive stimuli, enzymatic and other metabolic factors, learning ability, and discrimination learning histories and their relation to psychiatric and developmental disabilities. (shrink)

In their enthusiasm for programming, computational linguists have tended to lose sight of what humansdo. They have conceived of conversations as independent of sound and the bodies that produce it. Thus, implicit in their simulations is the assumption that the text is the essence of talk. In fact, unlike electronic mail, conversations are acoustic events. During everyday talk, human understanding depends both on the words spoken and on fine interpersonal vocal coordination. When utterances are analysed into sequences of word-based forms, (...) however, these prosodic aspects of language disappear. Therefore, to investigate the possibility that machines might talk, we propose acommunion game that includes this interpersonal patterning. Humans and machines would talk together and, based on recordings of them, a panel would appraise the relevant merit of each machine's simulation by how true to life it sounded. Unlike Turing's imitation game, the communion game overtly focuses attention, not on intelligence, but on language. It is designed to facilitate the development of social groups of adaptive robots that exploit complex acoustic signals in real time. We consider how the development of such machines might be approached. (shrink)

The question whether or not computers can think was first asked in print by Alan Turing in his seminal 1950 article. In order to avoid defining what a computer is or what thinking is, Turing resorts to “the imitation game” which is a test that allows us to determine whether or not a machine can think. That is, if an interrogator is unable to tell whether responses to his questions come from a human being or from a machine, the machine (...) is imitating a human being so well that it has to be acknowledged that these responses result from its thinking. However, then as now, it is not an indisputable claim that machines could think, and an unceasing stream of papers discussing the validity of the test proves this point. There are many arguments in favour of, as well as against, the claims borne by the test, and Turing himself discusses some of them. In his view, there are mice possible objections to the concept of a thinking machine, which he eventually dismisses as weak, irrelevant, or plain false. However, as he admits, he can present “no very convincing arguments of a positive nature to support my views. If I had I should not have taken such pains to point out the fallacies in contrary views”. (shrink)

This is a bibliography of books and articles on consciousness in philosophy, cognitive science, and neuroscience over the last 30 years. There are three main sections, devoted to monographs, edited collections of papers, and articles. The first two of these sections are each divided into three subsections containing books in each of the main areas of research. The third section is divided into 12 subsections, with 10 subject headings for philosophical articles along with two additional subsections for articles in cognitive (...) science and neuroscience. Of course the division is somewhat arbitrary, but I hope that it makes the bibliography easier to use. This bibliography has first been compiled by Thomas Metzinger and David Chalmers to appear in print in two philosophical anthologies on conscious experience . From 1995 onwards it has been continuously updated by Thomas Metzinger, and now is freely available as a PDF-, RTF-, or HTML-file. This bibliography mainly attempts to cover the Anglo-Saxon and German debates, in a non-annotated, fully formatted way that makes it easy to "cut and paste" from the original file. To a certain degree this bibliography also contains items in other languages than English and German - all submissions in other languages are welcome. Last update of current version: July 13th, 2001. (shrink)

Aspects of the controversy concerning the theoretical status of some recent thinking on human cognition are discussed; in particular, the concept of ?unconscious knowledge?, the ?functionalist? analysis of the mental; the problem of the domains of explananda, given the recalcitrant difficulty in providing warrantable and generalizable criteria for individuating components of an organism's ?behavior'; the problem of the polymorphous character of various mental predicates and their misconceived treatment as ?state? or ?process? descriptors; the possible ?over?intellectualizing? of central?nervous?system processes, and the (...) availability of an alternative program for the ?middle?ground? between common?sense reasoning and neuroscientific research in the study of ?mind?. Throughout the discussion, a broadly neo?Wittgensteinian approach is advanced. (shrink)

Abstract Surprisingly, little theoretical attention has so far been paid to the ?Comparative Assumption?: the attempt to extrapolate from species to species in psychology (and particularly to the human species). This paper examines the problems and the possibilities inherent in the Comparative Assumption. Perhaps the most important conclusion of the paper is that much more work is needed on this intriguing question.

A fundamental problem in artificial intelligence is that nobody really knows what intelligence is. The problem is especially acute when we need to consider artificial systems which are significantly different to humans. In this paper we approach this problem in the following way: we take a number of well known informal definitions of human intelligence that have been given by experts, and extract their essential features. These are then mathematically formalised to produce a general measure of intelligence for arbitrary machines. (...) We believe that this equation formally captures the concept of machine intelligence in the broadest reasonable sense. We then show how this formal definition is related to the theory of universal optimal learning agents. Finally, we survey the many other tests and definitions of intelligence that have been proposed for machines. (shrink)

Oscar is going to be the first artificial person — at any rate, he is going to be the first artificial person to be built in Tucson's Philosophy Department. Oscar's creator, John Pollock, maintains that once Oscar is complete he will experience qualia, will be self-conscious, will have desires, fears, intentions, and a full range of mental states (Pollock 1989, pp. ix–x). In this paper I focus on what seems to me to be the most problematical of these claims, viz., (...) that Oscar will experience qualia. I argue that we have not been given sufficient reasons to believe this bold claim. I doubt that Oscar will enjoy qualitative conscious phenomena and I maintain that it will be like nothing to be Oscar. (shrink)

Harnad''s proposed robotic upgrade of Turing''s Test (TT), from a test of linguistic capacity alone to a Total Turing Test (TTT) of linguisticand sensorimotor capacity, conflicts with his claim that no behavioral test provides even probable warrant for attributions of thought because there is no evidence of consciousness besides private experience. Intuitive, scientific, and philosophical considerations Harnad offers in favor of his proposed upgrade are unconvincing. I agree with Harnad that distinguishing real from as if thought on the basis of (...) (presence or lack of) consciousness (thus rejecting Turing (behavioral) testing as sufficient warrant for mental attribution)has the skeptical consequence Harnad accepts — there is in factno evidence for me that anyone else but me has a mind. I disagree with hisacceptance of it! It would be better to give up the neo-Cartesian faith in private conscious experience underlying Harnad''s allegiance to Searle''s controversial Chinese Room Experiment than give up all claim to know others think. It would be better to allow that (passing) Turing''s Test evidences — evenstrongly evidences — thought. (shrink)

This paper attempts to show the real nature of Universal Grammar. Universal grammar is separate part of human mind which makes language learning possible and generative. Universal grammar is the symbolic and systematic rules inside our mind. These rules help us to classify, analyze, differentiate, assimilate, understand and recognize human language. This paper determines the real nature of philosophical grammar and discusses the modular and non-modular approach of it. I shall examine the critical approaches of Wittgenstein and Chomsky and their (...) comparison to investigate the philosophical grammar. (shrink)