Selmer Bringsjord (1995) Are Computers Automata?
. Psycoloquy: 6(39) Robot Consciousness (17)
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Psycoloquy 6(39): Are Computers Automata?
ARE COMPUTERS AUTOMATA?
Reply to Rickert on Robot-Consciousness
Selmer Bringsjord
Dept. of Philosophy, Psychology & Cognitive Science
Department of Computer Science
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy NY 12180 (USA)
selmer@rpi.edu
http://www.rpi.edu/~brings
Abstract
At the heart of "What Robots Can and Can't Be" (ROBOTS,
1992) is the argument that persons can't be built by AI
researchers because persons have certain properties such as free
will that automata necessarily lack. Rickert (1995) objects that
since computers are not automata, this argument fails. ROBOTS
stated explicitly, however, that although computers (and, a
fortiori, robots) are npt, strictly speaking, automata, what
differentiates robots and computers from automata is of no help,
because if Turing Machines can't have free will, then neither can
embodied Turing Machines with sensors and effectors, that is,
neither can robots.
Keywords
behaviorism, Chinese Room Argument, cognition,
consciousness, finite automata, free will, functionalism,
introspection, mind, story generation, Turing machines, Turing
Test.
References
- Bringsjord, S. (1994a) "Computation, Among Other Things, Is Beneath Us," Minds & Machines 4.4: 469-488.
- Bringsjord, S. (1994b) 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).
- Rickert, N. W. (1995) "A Computer Is Not an Automaton: Book Review of What Robots Can and Can't Be" PSYCOLOQUY 6(11) robot-consciousness.6.rickert.