Phil/Psych 446

Seminar in Cognitive Science

Week 6: Machines

Representational theories of consciousness

1. Consciousness is a mental representation.

2. Representation of what?

Current state of artificial intelligence

Stanford Racing Team

Other impressive feats?

Discussion questions

1. Is it important that computers be embodied?

2. Can there be intelligence without representation?

3. Is the Turing test a good way to decide whether a machine is conscious?

4. What aspects of thinking relevant to consciousness are hard for machines?

5. What's wrong with Searle's Chinese room argument?

6. Does quantum theory help to understand consciousness?

7. How can we build a conscious robot?

8. If computers become conscious, will their qualia be like ours?

9. Could the Internet become conscious?

10. Should people become cyborgs, i.e. combinations of brains and computers?

 


Phil/Psych 446

Computational Epistemology Laboratory.

Paul Thagard

This page updated Oct. 15, 2007