Minds and Computers : An Introduction to the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence

Matt Carter is a Fellow of the Philosophy Depar tment at Melbourne University.
This is his first book.
Matt Car ter
  

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M I N D S A N D C O M P U T E R S

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for G
who Helped
and
for Sue
without whom . . .

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M I N D S
A N D
C O M P U T E R S
A N I N T R O D U C T I O N T O T H E
P H I LO S O P H Y O F A RT I F I C I A L
I N T E L L I G E N C E
Matt Carter
E D I N BU RG H U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S

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© Matt Carter, 2007
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh 
Typeset in Times
by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Manchester, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by Cromwell Press,
Trowbridge, Wilts
A CIP record for this book is available 
from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 2098 2 (hardback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 2099 9 (paperback) 
The right of Matt Carter
to be identified as author of this work 
has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
ix
1
Introduction
1
2
Dualism
4
2.1
Substance Dualism
4
2.2
Cartesian Dualism
5
2.3
Positive Arguments for Cartesian Dualism
5
2.3.1 The Argument from Religion
6
2.3.2 The Argument from Introspective Appearance
7
2.3.3 The Argument from Essential Properties
8
2.4
Arguments against Cartesian Dualism
9
2.4.1 The Problem of Other Minds
9
2.4.2 Ockham’s Razor
10
2.4.3 The Problem of Interaction
11
2.5
Other Dualisms
12
2.5.1 Parallelism
12
2.5.2 Occasionalism
13
2.5.3 Epiphenomenalism
13
2.6
Anomalous Monism
14
3
Behaviourism
15
3.1
Early Empirical Psychology
15
3.2
Physiological Psychology
16
3.3
Introspectionist Psychology
17
3.4
Psychological Behaviourism
20
3.5
Philosophical Behaviourism
23
3.6
Objections to Philosophical Behaviourism
24
4
Neuroanatomy
27
4.1
Macro-Neuroanatomy
27
4.2
Micro-Neuroanatomy
32

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5
Australian Materialism
35
5.1
The Causal Theory of Mind
36
5.2
The Identity Theory
37
5.3
Arguments against Australian Materialism
38
5.4
What Mary Didn’t Know
42
6
Functionalism
44
6.1
Functional Definition
44
6.2
A Black Box Theory
45
6.3
Qualia Objections
48
7
Formal Systems
52
7.1
E
ffectivity
53
7.2
States and Rules
57
7.3
Specification
58
7.4
Generation and Derivation
61
7.5
Generation Trees
64
7.6
Formality and Isomorphism
67
8
Computability
70
8.1
Register Machines
70
8.2
Programs
71
8.3
Running a Program
73
8.4
Computation
75
8.5
Computable Functions
76
8.6
Building Programs
79
9
Universal Machines
85
9.1
Church/Turing Thesis
86
9.2
Gödel Coding
88
9.3
A Universal Machine
92
10
Computationalism
94
10.1
What Computationalism Isn’t
95
10.2
Software and Wetware
99
10.3
Variation
101
10.4
Learning
103
10.5
Creativity
106
10.6
Attributing Mentality
108
11
Search
113
11.1
Top Down, Bottom Up
113
11.2
Breadth Versus Depth
115
11.3
Heuristic Search
117
vi
  

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12
Games
122
12.1
A Simple Game
122
12.2
Minimax
125
12.3
Pruning
127
12.4
Humans Versus Computers
128
13
Machine Reasoning
132
13.1
Logic and Deduction
132
13.2
Conditionality and Predication
134
13.3
Kinship
137
13.4
Expert Systems
141
14
Machines and Language
145
14.1
Interpreting Language
145
14.2
Generative Grammar
149
14.3
Phrase Structure Trees
150
14.4
Computing Language
152
15
Human Reasoning
154
15.1
Following Logically
156
15.2
Rational Performance
157
15.3
Mental Models
160
15.4
Explanatory Burden
161
16
Human Language
164
16.1
Obstruent Phonemes
165
16.2
Sonorant Phonemes
167
16.3
Allophones and Phonetic Realisation
170
16.4
First-Language Acquisition
172
16.5
Language and Rules
173
17
Meaning
175
17.1
The Chinese Room
175
17.2
Syntax and Semantics
177
18
Representation
181
18.1
Intentionality
181
18.2
Categories and Content
183
18.3
Symbols and Patterns
184
18.4
Cognitive Architecture
185
19
Artificial Neural Networks
187
19.1
Connectionist Architecture
187
19.2
Simple Artificial Neural Networks
189

vii

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19.3
Synthesising Speech
191
19.4
Learning
196
19.5
Pattern Recognition
198
19.6
Two Paradigms?
199
19.7
It’s Only a Model
200
20
Minds and Computers
202
20.1
Consciousness
202
20.2
Personal Identity
203
20.3
Emotions
205
20.4
Computers with Minds
206
Appendix I: Suggestions for Further Reading
207
Appendix II: Glossary of Terms
211
Index
218
viii
  

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to express my gratitude to all who participated, directly and indi-
rectly, in the production of this book.
Thank you to the teaching sta
ff who were based in the Cognitive Science
programme at the University of Queensland in the final years of the
twentieth century, for inspiring in me a commitment to the importance of
cross-disciplinary analysis. My gratitude further extends to all of my teach-
ers – both within and without Philosophy.
Thank you also to the years of undergraduates who have su
ffered my
instruction. In particular, I am grateful to my ‘Minds and Machines’ class of
2002 for inspiring this textbook in the first instance, and to my classes of
2006 for reading and commenting on material contained herein.
Thank you to the Philosophy Department at Melbourne University,
where I was based while writing this book, and to its superb o
ffice staff.
Thank you to all at EUP for publishing this volume and for being such a
pleasure to deal with. Particular thanks to Jackie Jones for her initial enthu-
siasm for the project.
Thank you to all my friends for their support and understanding, partic-
ularly to FB, Wayne and Eloise for tolerating innumerably many dinner-time
drop-ins, and to Lester and Christie for assistance above and beyond the call
of friendship.
Thank you very much to Graham Priest, without whom this book would
not have been written.
Thank you to Mia and Linus for being adorable, and a million thank yous
to Sue, for being wonderful.
ix

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C H A P T E R 1
INTRODUCTION
This is a book about minds. It is also about computers. Centrally, we
will be interested in examining the relation between minds and com-
puters.
The idea that we might one day be able to construct some artefact
which has a mind in the same sense that we have minds is not a new
one. It has featured in entertaining and frightening fictions since
Mary Shelley first conceived of Frankenstein’s monster.
In the classic science fiction of the early to mid-twentieth century,
this idea was generally cashed out in terms of ‘mechanical men’ or