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

Loebner Prize
an instituted and annually conducted implement-
ation of the Turing test.
logic
the research programme which investigates logics.
logics
formal systems which encode consequence relations – what
‘follows from’ what as a matter of logical form.
materialism, reductive/Australian/central state
various names for the
philosophical theory of mind according to which types of mental
states are identical to types of neural states.
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minimax
a procedure for determining winning strategies in the
context of a formal system representing a two-player game.
modus ponens
the logical principle according to which we can
deduce, from the truth of the antecedent of a conditional, the truth
of its consequent.
modus tollens
the logical principle according to which we can deduce,
from the falsity of the consequent of a conditional, the falsity of its
antecedent.
monophthong
a sonorant phoneme whose production involves
holding the tongue at one of the cardinal vowel positions.
multiple realisability
with respect to mental states, the fact that they
can have more than one physical implementation, either across sub-
jects or within a subject across time.
neural plasticity
the property of human brains such that certain parts
of the brain can take up the customary function(s) of damaged parts
of the brain – particularly prevalent in younger brains.
neuron
an individual cell of the nervous system.
normative
broadly speaking, a principle, or set of principles, which
purports to tell us what we ought to do.
obstruent
a phoneme whose production requires that the passage of
air through the articulatory apparatus be partially or completed
obstructed.
occasionalism
a kind of mind–body dualism according to which
minds and bodies do not interact, but rather God steps in from time
to time to make things seem as if they do.
Ockham’s razor
a methodological constraint on theory construc-
tion which maintains that one shouldn’t postulate any more entities
than are strictly explanatorily necessary.
ontology
the core of metaphysics which deals with what, funda-
mentally, there is – the ontology of dualism is one according to
which there are two distinct substances.