Abstract
Perhaps our minds are just like computers, even if of interesting kinds (as science fiction illustrates). Then that 'dazzling image' might make particular thoughts seem inevitable, generated exceptionlessly. Hence, Chap. 6 addresses issues most readily raised for artificial intelligence (in a “Strong AI” version) to further elaborate our concept of a person, by first exploring how the so-called Turing Test sets bounds for constructing intelligence. Searle’s "Chinese Room" argument is recruited to expose some limitations of this Test: since computer programmes are syntactic, and syntax cannot determine semantics, passing the Test cannot guarantee understanding. Then, the so-called "Aphrodite Argument", in recognizing constraints on understanding genuine persons, renders problematic the prospect of androids. Some apparent counter-cases, presented from the movie Blade Runner (1982) and the novel The Turing Option (Harrison and Minsky, Penguin Books, 1992), give this contention content and make it vivid. A different version of androidology, from the television series Westworld (2016), reinforces the differential explanatory power of reference to persons and to machines.
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Notes
- 1.
Hence Strong AI “is identical with computer functionalism” (Searle, 2008, p. 58).
- 2.
On the homunculus fallacy, see Bennett & Hacker, 2007, pp. 132–133.
- 3.
From Searle in Voices, Channel 4 television (UK), in discussion with Margaret Boden, chaired by Ted Honderich.
- 4.
- 5.
See also the suggestion that “expert-systems” (say, for landing an aeroplane) are sometimes just “high-speed data-base searches” (Putnam, 1994, pp. 322–323).
- 6.
From Voices, Channel 4 television (cited note 3).
- 7.
- 8.
Suggested by Myrene McFee in discussion of this point.
- 9.
It is surprisingly difficult to find examples not based on incompatibility with the biology.
- 10.
Perhaps Searle accepts some version of this argument too, although not explicitly. Certainly, he seems strongly committed to the biological basis here, such that having a “truly substantive of a biological nature … [will] be like digestion or photosynthesis or the secretion of bile” (see Searle, 2008, p. 82); but—contrast with below—Searle (2008, p. 72) also recognizes that “[a]n artificial heart does not merely simulate pumping, it actually pumps”; similarly, for artificial brains in relation to consciousness.
- 11.
- 12.
Consider “the dog knows the cat is up the tree”, a sort of knowledge-attribution uninteresting for students of personhood. See Malcolm, 1977, pp. 40–57.
- 13.
For discussion, see Putnam, 1988, esp. Chaps. 1, 2, and 5.
- 14.
- 15.
Blade Runner , starring Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer; directed by Ridley Scott from a screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Its inspiration was Philip K. Dick’s novella, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Grafton Books, 1968), which presents a more complex version. But my comments are typically based on the original 1982 ‘cut’ of the film. For detail, see Coplan & Davies, 2015.
- 16.
- 17.
The exception is Rachael, the replicant that Deckard (the hero) falls in love with. But, as her maker implies, she is a special case, not required to engage in the activities usually reserved for replicants. Yet these very differences highlight the intentions vis-à-vis other replicants.
- 18.
As Searle (1984, pp. 35–36) points out, there is an uninteresting sense in which we are machines. But the thought here is clear enough.
- 19.
Is this a genuine act of compassion? Certainly, that point, if conceded, exhibits one of the key personal properties. For discussion, see Midgley, 1979, esp. Chaps. 9 and 10.
- 20.
- 21.
- 22.
- 23.
This question returns us to the idea of conceivability: see especially Hacker, 1976, cited note 14.
- 24.
Talking to Jeffrey Hinton, Voices, Channel 4, April 19, 1988; and see Searle, 1992, pp. 66–68.
- 25.
See Shanker, 1987, p. 99 (quoting Wittgenstein, RPP 1, §1096): “Turing’s machine: These machines are in fact human beings who calculate”.
- 26.
HBO television, of ten episodes, first broadcast between 2nd October and December 4th December, 2016: created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. A second series aired in 2018; but only the first series (2016) is addressed here.
- 27.
Baker and Morris (1996) is the obvious exception: my debt here, as elsewhere, to their scholarship should also be obvious.
- 28.
Note too that “[p]eople who never philosophize and use only their senses” conceive of the union between body and soul without difficulty: for Descartes, “the ordinary course of life and conversation” teaches us to do this (CSMK III, p. 227); but, in fact, “the mind and the body are incomplete substances when they are referred to a human being which together they make up” (CSM II, p. 157 [4th Set of Replies]), although each is complete relative just to itself.
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McFee, G. (2019). Persons, Artificial Intelligence, and Science Fiction Thought–Experiments. In: Philosophy and the 'Dazzling Ideal' of Science. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21675-7_6
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