❄Argument from Possibility
❄Argument from Privileged
Access
❄Chinese Room Argument
❄Descartes’ argument against
animal minds
Will you survive
your bodily
death?
Core elements of Near-Death Experiences
(Long and Perry, Evidence of the Afterlife.)
1. Out-of-body experience
2. Intense and generally positive
emotions
3. Passing through a tunnel
4. Encountering a mystical or
brilliant light
5. Having a life review
What am I?
❄Brain
❊Tissue
❊Neural networks
❄Mind
❊Thoughts, emotions,
conscious experiences
Substance dualism
❄Human beings are made
up of 2 distinct
substances
(i.e. body + soul)
Appearance & Reality
❄It is logically possible that
what we perceive is not
real.
❄It is true that what we
perceive is not real (?)
True
Logically possible
Scenario 1
My body
exists
I exist
Scenario 2
My body
doesn’t
Iexist
exist
It is impossible that I am
conscious, yet I don’t exist.
Diversity of Discernibles
If X has property P, but Y lacks property P,
then X is not the same thing as Y.
BODY
Lacks property of
“possibly existing
while your body
does not exist”
I
?
Property of
“possibly existing
while your body
does not exist”
“Property P”
1)
If I have the property P, but my
body lacks the property P, then I
am not the same thing as my body.
1)
I have the property P, but my
body lacks the property P.
1)
Therefore, I am not the same thing
as my body.
Diversity of
Discernibles
Dream
example
Conclusion
❄It seems to me that X is true.
❄‘But it is possible that X is not true’
❊i.e. I may be mistaken that X is true
❄‘But if X isn’t true, then what is true?’
Must we know what is true before we can
tell that it’s possible that X isn’t true?
Hmmm…
❄I seem to see a puppy.
❄I have taken a drug which
makes me see all living
things as puppies.
❄“It is logically possible
that this is not a puppy”
❊Do you agree?
This could be
really a puppy…
but it could also
be a kitten, or
some living
thing I don’t
know about
“So I shall suppose that some malicious,
powerful, cunning demon has done all he
can to deceive me…
I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth,
colours, shapes, sounds and all external
things are merely dreams that the demon
has contrived as traps for my judgment.
I shall consider myself as having no hands
or eyes, or flesh, or blood or senses, but as
having falsely believed that I had all these
things.”
It is logically possible that an evil
demon is now deceiving you into
thinking you have a body.
It is logically impossible that an evil
demon is now deceiving you into
thinking you exist.
It is logically possible that you exist
while your body does not exist.
“Well, then, what am I? A
thing that thinks.
What is that? A thing that
doubts, understands,
affirms, denies, wants,
refuses, and also imagines
and senses.”
I am a soul
We will
die.
We are
souls.
Our bodies will
disintegrate.
Will we continue
to exist?
❄Questioning, history, facial
cues, etc
❄Check brain
❊Correlation between brain
states and mental states
There is a truth of the
matter about what number
your neighbour thought of.
How do we
discover
that truth?
❄We might tell what
you are thinking by
indirect methods
❄But how do you tell
what you are
thinking?
By
thinking
it
❄You always have privileged
access to your own thoughts,
emotions and experiences
❄You can directly know what you
are thinking, feeling and
perceiving
❄Others can only know indirectly
1
❄No one always has privileged access to
the physical world
❄Counter-examples?
❊The physical objects in your house?
Body
Mind
❄ You find out
about it in the
same way
others find out
about it
❄ 3rd person point
of view
 You find out
about it in a
different way
compared with
how others find
out about it
 1st person point of
view
Diversity of Discernibles
If X has property P, but Y lacks property P,
then X is not the same thing as Y.
BODY
Lacks property of
“always having
privileged access”
MIND
?
Property of
“always having
privileged access”
“Property P”
Part 2
Pain +
pain behaviour
Pain
behaviour
❄Definition of a Zombie
❊Looks exactly like humans
❊Behaves exactly like
humans
❊But has NO consciousness
How do
you
know?
Diversity of Discernibles
If X has property P, but Y lacks property P,
then X is not the same thing as Y.
BODY
Lacks property of
“always having
privileged access”
MIND
?
Property of
“always having
privileged access”
“Property P”
1. If I have the property P, but my
body lacks the property P, then
I am not the same thing as my
body.
2. I have the property P, but my
body lacks the property P.
3. Therefore, I am not the same
thing as my body.
Diversity of
Discernibles
Reflection
Conclusion
‘The brain begins to seem like a
magic box, a font of sorcery…how
can sending an electric current
into a bunch of cells produce
conscious experience?
What do electricity and cells have
to do with conscious subjectivity?
How could a conscious self exist
inside such a soggy clump?’
- Colin McGinn, The Mysterious Flame
❄ Brain & Mind
❄ Substance dualism
❄ Empirical vs Philosophical argument for Dualism
The Argument from Possibility
❄ Logically possible vs True
❄ Diversity of Discernibles
The argument from Privileged Access
❄ Behaviour & Mental states
❄ Zombies
❄ Private vs Public access
❄Souls?
❄Complex Machines?
❄Utterly different from
(other) animals?
❄Strong vs Weak AI
❄Passing the Turing Test proves:
❊The computer understands what it is told (?)
❊And it explains human ability to understand and
respond accordingly (?)
❄“The claim that
1. appropriately programmed computers literally
have cognitive states and that
2. the programs thereby explain human
cognition.”
Ask yourself what it would be like if your
mind actually works in the way this theory
says all minds work.
❄Assume you don’t know Chinese
❄Suppose you’re locked in a room &
given a passage of Chinese writing
❄Thereafter, suppose you’re given a
collection of notes with Chinese
writing, together with a set of rules for
correlating the passages with the notes
❄The rules are in English, which you
know
❄ The rules tell you how to give back a
specific note with certain Chinese
symbols in response to how the initial
passage of Chinese writing looks like
See this, then ❄ This process continues for some time
❊Receive initial passage of Chinese
return this
writing
❊Check English rules to determine which
note to give back
Unknown to you, those who give you
the Chinese writing believe:
❄The initial passages of Chinese
writing = ‘Questions for you’
❄The rules = ‘The Program’
❄The notes I give back =
‘Your answers to our questions’
❄ After a long time, you become
very good at receiving passages,
checking the rules and then
returning notes.
❄ You have inputs and outputs
that are indistinguishable from
the expert Chinese speaker
❄ But do you understand Chinese?
See this, then
return this
❄Passing the Turing Test proves:
❊The computer understands what it is told (?)
❊And it explains human ability to understand and
respond accordingly (?)
❄ Strong vs Weak AI
❄“The claim that
1. appropriately programmed computers literally
have cognitive states and that
2. the programs thereby explain human
cognition.”
❄Passing the Turing Test proves:
❊The computer understands what it is told (?)
❊And it explains human ability to understand and
respond accordingly (?)
❄ Strong vs Weak AI
❄“The claim that
1. appropriately programmed computers literally
have cognitive states and that
2. the programs thereby explain human
cognition.”
❄Suppose instead you’re now locked into a
room and given English questions instead
❄You are given a pen and blank paper to write
responses.
❄You then given back what you’ve written.
❄Your inputs and outputs are distinct from the
expert English speaker
Given Passages +
Program +
Returned Notes
Chinese Room
Scenario
Given Passages +
Mind +
Returned Notes
English Room
Scenario
❄Passing the Turing Test proves:
❊The computer understands what it is told (?)
❊And it explains human ability to understand and
respond accordingly (?)
❄ Strong vs Weak AI
❄“The claim that
1. appropriately programmed computers literally
have cognitive states and that
2. the programs thereby explain human
cognition.”
“From the external point of view – from
the point of view of someone reading my
‘answers’ – the answers to the Chinese
questions and the English questions are
equally good.
But in the Chinese case, unlike the English
case, I produce the answers by
manipulating uninterpreted formal
symbols.
As far as the Chinese is concerned, I
simply behave like a computer; I perform
computational operations on formally
specified elements.”
❄The computer understands
nothing
❄The computer’s activity does not
parallel human understanding
See this, then
return this
❊Difference in kind, not degree
❄Not about the type of rules used
to determine the input-output
relation
❄‘Aboutness’
❄The content of mental states
❄‘Intentional states’ = state of being about
something
What the difference between the
meaning of ‘red’ and ‘blue’?
Colour & Number?
❄Searle considers 7
objections
❄How would you address
those objections?
❊See if you can anticipate his
responses
❄Compare your response to
Searle’s and analyse the
difference
❄ ‘There are different kinds of
understanding.’
❄ Searle: “There are clear cases in
which ‘understanding’ literally
applies and clear cases in which it
does not apply; and these two sorts
of cases are all I need for this
argument.”
❄ “The computer understanding is not
just (like my understanding of
German) partial or incomplete; it is
zero.”
❄“The door knows
when to open
because of its
photoelectric cell”
❄“The adding
machine knows how
to do addition and
subtraction but not
division”
“The reason we make
these attributions is quite
interesting, and it has to
do with the fact that in
artifacts we extend our
own intentionality, our
tools are extensions of our
purposes, and so we find
it natural to make
metaphorical attributions
of intentionality to them”
❄Understanding ascribed to the whole system
of which the individual is a part
❊Rules, data, paper, etc
Searle’s reply:
❄Let the person be the system by internalising
all the parts
❄“All the same, he understands nothing of the
Chinese” [Therefore, the same goes for the system
which is in him.]
❄Formal symbol
manipulation system
❄Pattern of ink
❄‘squiggle squiggle’ is
followed by ‘squoggle
squoggle’
Understanding of the
message?
❄Language expert
❄‘Apple’
❄‘How are you?’ = how
are you?
Understanding of the
message?
❄Systems reply claims
anything with inputoutput process
guided by a program
has understanding.
Stomach (Digestion)?
Heart? Liver?
Absurd to think it
this is true
Absurd to think it
has understanding
❄Method
❊Understanding
reasoning
❊Examining principles
❊Considering thought
experiments
❊Grasping distinctions
Suggestion:
Start by understanding the
overall structure of the essay
Then proceed to examine
specific parts.
❄Big picture
❊How all sections are
linked
(“What is the author trying to
do here?”)
❄Thought experiment
❊Chinese Room Scenario
❄Starting point (Data)
❊“The study of the mind starts with such facts
as that humans have beliefs, while
thermometers, telephones, and adding
machines don’t.”
Philosophical
View
Hypothesis/
Prediction
Observation/
Reflection
Compare
Starting point
Abstraction
Distinction
Thought
experiments
How do we know that
other people have
understanding?
Simply by observing
their behaviour.
Including what they
say and do
How do we know
that machines have
understanding?
We use
behavioural
tests
“The problem in this discussion is
not about how I know that other
people have cognitive states, but
rather what it is that I am
attributing to them when I
attribute cognitive states to them.
The thrust of the argument is that
it couldn’t be just computational
processes and their output because
the computational processes and
their output can exist without the
cognitive state.”
“I see no reason in
principle why we
couldn’t give a machine
the capacity to
understand English or
Chinese, since in an
important sense our
bodies with our brains
are precisely such
machines.”
“I am a certain sort of organism
with a certain biological structure,
and this structure, under certain
conditions, is causally capable of
producing perception, action,
understanding, learning, and other
intentional phenomena.
And part of the point of the
present argument is that only
something that had those causal
powers could have that
intentionality.”
Could a machine think?
The answer is, obviously,
yes. We are precisely
such machines.
Yes, but could an artifact, a
man-made machine, think?
Depends on what it is like
❄Symbols don’t symbolise
anything by themselves?
❄Symbolic meaning exist
only because there are
minds attributing
meaning to symbols?
❄Strong & Weak AI
❄Argument against Strong AI
❊Searle’s Chinese Room Argument
❄Objections against Searle’s argument
❄Intentionality
❄Computational processes
❊Formal symbol manipulation
❄Thinking/understanding
❊Grasping meaning
No apparent physical
properties
Length, mass, texture
Intentionality
No apparent intentionality
Privileged access
No privileged access
Logically possible to
exist without the
physical
Logically impossible
to exist without the
physical
Descartes: Animals are
mindless machines
Do you agree?
How do you tell?
Language Test
❄ “But it never happens that it arranges its speech in
various ways, in order to reply appropriately to
everything that may be said in its presence, as
even the lowest type of man can do.”
Rationality Test
❄ “It is impossible that there should be sufficient
diversity in any machine to allow it to act in all the
events of life in the same way our reason causes us
to act.”
❄“For if this were true, since
they have many organs
which are allied to our own,
they could communicate
their thoughts to us just as
easily as to those of their
own race.”
❄If animals have language,
then they would be able to
communicate to us easily?
❄ Presence of extremes
❄ “the fact that they do better than we do, does not
prove that they are endowed with mind, for in this
case they would have more reason than any of us,
and would surpass us in all other things.”
❄ “It rather shows that they have no reason at all,
and that it is nature which acts in them according
to the disposition of their organs, just as a
clock…is able to tell the hours and measure the
time more correctly than we can do with all our
wisdom.”