Marina Brown & Joseph O'Rourke (1994) Agnosticism About the Arbitrary Realization Argument
. Psycoloquy: 5(83) Robot Consciousness (3)
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Psycoloquy 5(83): Agnosticism About the Arbitrary Realization Argument
AGNOSTICISM ABOUT THE ARBITRARY REALIZATION ARGUMENT
Book Review of Bringsjord on Robot-Consciousness
Marina Brown & Joseph O'Rourke
Dept. of Computer Science
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
orourke@cs.smith.edu
Abstract
We argue that Bringsjord (1992, 1994) should be agnostic
about his version (ARA1) of Block's Arbitrary Realization Argument,
because Bringsjord admits to agnosticism about low-level
functionalism and low-level functionalism implies that the key
claim of ARA1 is false.
Keywords
behaviorism, Chinese Room Argument, cognition,
consciousness, finite automata, free will, functionalism,
introspection, mind, story generation, Turing machines, Turing
Test.
References
- Block, N. (1978) Troubles with Functionalism. In Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Harvard University Press.
- Bringsjord, S. (1992) What Robots Can and Can't Be. Boston: Kluwer Academic.
- Bringsjord, S. (1994) Precis of: What Robots Can and Can't Be. PSYCOLOQUY 5(59) robot-consciousness.1.bringsjord.
- Chalmers, D.J. (1993) Toward a theory of consciousness, Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
- Changeux, J.-P. and Dehaene, S. (1989) Neuronal models of cognitive functions, Cognition 33:63-109.
- Cole, D. and Foelber, R. (1984) Contingent materialism, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 65.1: 74-85.
- Cuda, T. (1985) Against neural chauvinism, Philosophical Studies 48: 111-127.
- Dewdney, A.K. (1993) The Tinkertoy Computer, W.H. Freeman, 7-15.
- Kauppinen, R.A., Williams, S.R., Busza, A.L., and van Bruggen, N. (1993) Applications of magnetic resonance spectroscopy and diffusion- weighted imaging to the study of brain biochemistry and pathology, Trends in Neurosciences Vol. 16, No. 3, 91-92.