Philosophy of Mind in AI

Reader & student notes kopen!Tegen volgende week: paper over Turing in reader lezen.

The multiple realization argument: (tegen type-physicolism van vorige les)Non-human animals have brains very different then ours, do they have C-fibers and then do they feel pain? We assume they feel pain. Maybe they have some other structure (not C-fibers) that detects tissue damage, so maybe they just feel pain differently. A type- physicolist would have a problem because pain comes from C-fibers.Why stop at animals, why not AI systems? Why don’t we suppose mental states are implemented in machines ? Is it crazy to suppose these machines could have mental states ? The idea of mental state (bv. Pain) is multiple realizable. It is realizable in a lot of beings. But this does not necessary comes from a physical thing (C-fibers).Pain can not be a neural/physic state!

Behaviorism19(eind)-20(begin) eeuw.Grew out of the critism of theories like dualism, mentalism (the attempt to put mental states in a protected categorie = something that is true on it’s own).

Begin 20 century very popular theory: Logical positivism (wanted philosophy like science) = Vienna circle philosophers.The scientific method (the reason they thought physics and stuff was so popular) : they idea of testing hypotheses by observation & experiments. Philosophers had meetings in Vienna to discuss how philosophy and science could come together. They would start with the idea that propositions (a sentence that is true or false) in order to be true or false they must be cognitively meaningful. This came down to observability, confirmibility, falsifiability, … Propositions that did not have this property would be pseudo-propositions. Take about God, … were not meaningful propositions.When can we say that a proposition is meaningful ? -> if it is verifiable by observation, determing whether it is true or false. But not everything can immediately be observed, but they have to be ‘in principle’ verifiable by observation. Verification principleBv. ‘There is intelligent life in outer space’ -> meaningful + ‘in principle’ in de toekomst observable.

Watson founding father of behaviorism. True phycology has to do with this verification principle.How can we study feelings, believes, desires,… if we can not observe them ? How can we make meaningful observations? Bv. Mental state: ‘Belief’. Beliefs are mental objects. Suppose I see you leaving your house with an umbrella and I hear you say ‘I think it is gonna rain today’ , now I know you have the belief that it is gonna rain. Do I observe this belief? No I observe what you wair, say, … I do not observe the belief itself. -> Behavior is observable! If you wanna study these mental state we have to place the domain of study somewhere else, to the behavior. -> alle mental terms refer to behavior, we can reduce the one to the other, one becomes obsolete!

Remark: You could say propositions about feelings, … are meaningless. They aren’t verifiable (only trough observation of behavior).

Mind-body problem here: the problem is not a real problem -> pseudo problem! There is no distinction. This whole problem is a confusion of the terms when we talk about the mind and body. The mind is just something we say instead of a complex array of behaviors. The mental states (believes, pain,…) are just a subset of this array and the relation.

Verification is not necessary finit. The belief that is gonna rain today can be translated to ‘carry an umbrella or wearing a rain coat or saying that is gonna rain or ……….. can go on and on! A reason why some people say this theory collapses under its own weight.

Functionalism1967 H.Putnam published a paper ‘physiological predicates‘, it changed the debate of the mind-body problem. First it critisized the mind/brain identification, the type-… . Second it stated the functionalism. Third it helped to install antireductionism. Everything arises from a single idea: the multiple realisabilty of mental properties.New conception of the mental.

M.R. and the functional conception of the mind.Bv. Believe in angels (immaterial and have a mental life). They do not exist but we do have a concept of them. There is nothing conceptual possible about them. ...-> The physical realization principle. If an entity x has a mental property m (a certain mental state) at a certain moment in time t, then x is a material thing and then x has a certain physical property p that realizes m in x at moment t.Only physical systems realize mental properties!This principle also requires that every mental property is physical-based. Minds are always embodied minds.In humans it is C-fibers that realizes pain but in other organisms it might be something different. Other beings like animals, AI system, aliens, …

Artifacts:Bv (nt psychology). Engine. The word is not clear about how it does it (benzene, oil, …) but it is clear what it does. It’s job description is clear.Bv. Pain. Job description: tissue damage detection. But species could have other ways of doing this.When we talk about the mind in term of computers, the job description of the mind is computing. The computational view of the mind is a popular saying.

…. (FF niet aan het opletten, oké heel lang)