Marina Brown and Joseph O'Rourke (1995) Agnosticism Revisited. Psycoloquy: 6(21) Robot Consciousness (14)
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Psycoloquy 6(21): Agnosticism Revisited
AGNOSTICISM REVISITED
Reply to Bringsjord on Robot-Consciousness
Marina Brown and Joseph O'Rourke
Dept. of Computer Science
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
orourke@cs.smith.edu
Abstract
Bringsjord (1995) formalizes our argument (Brown &
O'Rourke 1994) inaccurately and then shows that his formalized
version is fallacious. We offer a succinct restatement of our
argument to clarify its logical structure.
Keywords
behaviorism, Chinese Room Argument, cognition,
consciousness, finite automata, free will, functionalism,
introspection, mind, story generation, Turing machines, Turing
Test.
1. Using Bringsjord's (1995) notation, let LLF be "low-level
functionalism" and let 1VI be the claim that a system constituted by
workers in boxcars could not have mental states. Bringsjord claims to
be agnostic about LLF but to accept 1VI, an attitude we find
incongruous. We argued (Brown & O'Rourke 1994) that LLF implies
not-1VI: If low-level functionalism is true, then one could implement
that functional organization even in a system of boxcars and thus
produce a mind. If one is agnostic about LLF, one should accordingly
fail to find 1VI compelling.
2. Bringsjord lists a number of "rules of inference" on which we might
be relying, and finds them all fallacious. But none of them plays a
role in our argument. The only rule of inference used is: if s is
agnostic about p, and s knows that p implies not-q, then s should not
accept q. Presumably Bringsjord does not agree that LLF implies
not-1VI. If so, he should address our argument for this implication.
Acknowledgement: We thank David Chalmers for clarifying discussions.
REFERENCES
Bringsjord, S. (1994) Precis of: What Robots Can and Can't Be.
PSYCOLOQUY 5(59) robot-consciousness.1.bringsjord.
Bringsjord, S. (1992) What Robots Can and Can't Be. Dordrecht, The
Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Bringsjord, S. (1995) Agnosticism About Neuron-Level Functionalism.
PSYCOLOQUY 6(20) robot-consciousness.13.bringsjord
Brown, M. & O'Rourke, J. (1994) Agosticism About the Arbitrary
Realization Argument. PSYCOLOQUY 5(83) robot-consciousness.3.brown
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