Walter Massing (1995) Metaphysical Windmills in Robotland
. Psycoloquy: 6(16) Robot Consciousness (11)
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Psycoloquy 6(16): Metaphysical Windmills in Robotland
METAPHYSICAL WINDMILLS IN ROBOTLAND
Book Review of Bringsjord on Robot-Consciousness
Walter Massing
Day Clinic of the Langenhagen Psychiatric Clinic
Koenigstrasse 6a
D-30175 Hannover Germany
ndxdmass@rrzn-user.uni-hannover.de
Abstract
One of the main difficulties in Bringsjord's book What
Robots Can and Can't Be (1992, 1994) arises due to the fact that
concepts such as "person", "free will" and "introspection" are
metaphysical and cannot be subjected to empirical scrutiny. Central
statements such as "project to build a person" (PBP) are
imprecisely formulated, for PBP is not a project, but is at best a
prediction. Finally, Bringsjord's method is inadequately defined
when he speaks of "precise deductive arguments which sometimes
border on proofs," for deduction should not be regarded as a
method but as a rule. Without going all the way down the road of
the "eight clusters of philosophical issues," we will take a look
at natural language as well as the more stringent Turing Test and
the Goedel argument.
Keywords
behaviorism, Chinese Room Argument, cognition,
consciousness, finite automata, free will, functionalism,
introspection, mind, story generation, Turing machines, Turing
Test.
References