Seven features which in practice seem to differentiate belief systems from knowledge systems are discussed. These are: nonconsensuality, “existence beliefs,” alternative worlds, evaluative components, episodic material, unboundedness, and variable credences. Each of these features gives rise to challenging representation problems. Progress on any of these problems within artificial intelligence would be helpful in the study of knowledge systems as well as belief systems, inasmuch as the distinction between the two types of systems is not absolute.

In his recent paper "Indeterminacy, empiricism, and the first person" John R. Searle tries to refute Willard V. O. Quine's famous "indeterminacy of translation thesis" by arguing that this thesis is in fact a reductio ad absurdum of Quine's own "linguistic behaviorism". Searle accuses Quine of being "antimentalistic" and suggests that the "absurdity" of Quine's thesis might be avoided if a full-fledged "intentionality" were tolerated in the debate on meaning. - This anti-Quinean approach in some respects reminds of the "improbable (...) debate" between Searle and Jacques Derrida ten years ago, when Derrida had split and "deferred" intentionality by showing that the essential "iterability" of signs inevitably infects every intentional act with an unremovable "non-presence". In this paper it is argued that Searle's attacks on Quine and Derrida have both failed - and that there are structural similarities between these two failures which reveal some interesting parallels between Quine's and Derrida's philosophy. (shrink)

In ‘‘The Myth of Original Intentionality,’’ Daniel Dennett appears to want to argue for four claims involving the familiar distinction between original (or underived) and derived intentionality.

Disertační práce se zabývá problematikou připisování myšlení jiným entitám, a to pomocí imitační hry navržené v roce 1950 britským filosofem Alanem Turingem. Jeho kritérium, známé v dějinách filosofie jako Turingův test, je podrobeno detailní analýze. Práce popisuje nejen původní námitky samotného Turinga, ale především pozdější diskuse v druhé polovině 20. století. Největší pozornost je věnována těmto kritikám: Lucasova matematická námitka využívající Gödelovu větu o neúplnosti, Searlův argument čínského pokoje konstatující nedostatečnost syntaxe pro sémantiku, Blockův návrh na použití brutální síly pro (...) řešení imitační hry, Frenchova teorie subkognitivních informací a Michieho skepticismus ohledně možnosti umělého vědomí. Závěr práce zachycuje současný stav recepce Turingova testu a představuje pokusy o jeho praktickou realizaci, například v každoroční soutěži o Loebnerovu cenu. Autor práce zastává názor, že ani po více než šedesáti letech od uveřejnění Turingova paradigmatického eseje stále neexistují žádné vážné důvody pro zamítnutí jeho tvrzení. Tradiční komputační funkcionalismus možná není ideální teorií vysvětlující činnost myslí a jako slibnější se může jevit vývoj v neurálních vědách, ale Turingův test je přesto užitečným a snad i jediným nástrojem pro detekci inteligence u lidmi vytvořených strojů. (shrink)

This is not a scholarly research paper, but a ‘position paper’ outlining an approach to the study of mind which has been gradually evolving since about 1969 when I first become acquainted with work in Artificial Intelligence through Max Clowes. I shall try to show why it is more fruitful to construe the mind as a control system than as a computational system.

This paper is about - cognitive science's claim to obtain an empirically theory of human intelligence by experiments with intelligent machines; - the question, whether simulation yields/is explanation , i.e. whether the theory explaining the behaviour of a thing A, appropriately abstracted, as well explains the behaviour of a thing B, different in type from A, when A's and B's behaviours are indistinguishable; - the question, whether the Aristotelian ontic distinction between the natural and the artificial was in fact extinguished (...) by Descartes' materialistic intensional ontology; this question is denied by evidence of the existence of different theories of artificial and natural magnetism in current physics; - and about the comparison of the current theories of magnetism, of artificial or electromagnetism and of natural or ferromagnetism with the result that there is no uniform theory explaining all kinds of magnetism to be gained out of Maxwell's theory. Thus by counterexample is demonstrated that cognitive science's claim to obtain a theory of natural intelligence by the S:E-strategy is to be refused. Descartes' premise of the ontic indifference of the size of physical magnitudes is introduced as basis of the S:E-claim and its refutation as cause of the partial continuation of the ontic distinction between natural and artificial things in physics. (shrink)

The original publication can be found at www.springerlink.com.

This is not a scholarly research paper, but a ‘position paper’ outlining an approach to the study of mind which has been gradually evolving since about 1969 when I first become acquainted with work in Artificial Intelligence through Max Clowes. I shall try to show why it is more fruitful to construe the mind as a control system than as a computational system.

The ?language of the gods? is conceived as a kind of language more complex than what we associate with human tongues in the strict sense of the term. Certain arbitrary regularities throughout the rational disciplines appear to indicate the existence of this language. The present article explores this new concept and applies it in an attempt to provide a logical clarification of the notions of individual consciousness and physical reality.