Selmer Bringsjord (1995) Agnosticism About Neuron-level Functionalism
. Psycoloquy: 6(20) Robot Consciousness (13)
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Psycoloquy 6(20): Agnosticism About Neuron-level Functionalism
AGNOSTICISM ABOUT NEURON-LEVEL FUNCTIONALISM
Reply to Brown & O'Rourke on Robot-Consciousness
Selmer Bringsjord
Dept. of Philosophy, Psychology & Cognitive Science
Department of Computer Science
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy NY 12180
selmer@rpi.edu
Abstract
Brown & O'Rourke (1994) argue that in response to an
objection to one version of the Arbitrary Realization Argument
(ARA1) against the computational conception of mind -- an argument
I specify and defend in Chapter VI of What Robots Can and Can't Be
(Bringsjord 1992) -- I unwittingly affirm (by adopting an agnostic
attitude toward neuron-level functionalism) the negation of a
premise in ARA1. This argument seems to be provably fallacious.
Keywords
behaviorism, Chinese Room Argument, cognition,
consciousness, finite automata, free will, functionalism,
introspection, mind, story generation, Turing machines, Turing
Test.
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.
- Brown, M. & O'Rourke, J. (1994) Agosticism About the Arbitrary Realization Argument. PSYCOLOQUY 5(83) robot-consciousness.3.brown.
- Cole, D. & R. Foelber (1984) Contingent Materialism. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 65.1:74-85.
- Genesereth, M. & Nilsson, N. (1987) Logical Foundations of Artificial Intelligence. San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann.
- Moore, R.C. (1995) Logic and Representation. Stanford, CA: CSLI.