1. Time, Self and Mind (ATS1835) Introduction to Philosophy B Semester 2, 2015
Dr Ron Gallagher
Office Hours: Clayton: Thu 1-2pm E664 (please for appointment)
Week 5: Can Machines Think?

2. Time - Introduction and Time Travel
Week
Beginning
Topic
Assessment
Readings W1
27-Jul-14
Time - Introduction and Time Travel
Readings 1.1 & 1.2 W2
03-Aug-14
Time Travel; Freedom, Determinism, and Indeterminism
Readings 1.5 & 1.6 (sections 1-2 & 6-10) W3
10-Aug-14
Logic Primer
AT1 Mon August 10, 10am
Readings W4
17-Aug-14
Mind- Dualism versus Materialism about the Mind
Readings W5
24-Aug-14
Mind - Can Machines Think? Computationalism and the Turing Test
Readings 3.3 W6
31-Aug-14
Mind - Can Machines Think? Objections to Computationalism
AT2 Mon Aug 31st, 10am
Reading 3.4 W7
07-Sep-14
Self - Lockean Psychological Theory and Identity
Readings W8
14-Sep-14
Self - Identity, the Body & Person Stages
Readings W9
21-Sep-14
Knowledge What is Knowledge and Gettier's Account
AT3 Mon Sep 21st, 10am
Readings
28-Sep-14
Mid-semester Break
W10
05-Oct-14
Knowledge - Nozick's Account and Scepticism
Readings
W11
12-Oct-14
Knowledge - The Moorean Response
AT4 Essay Mon Oct 12th
Readings 5.5
W12
19-Oct-14
Revision (no lectures, no tutorials)

3. Assessment Hurdle Requirements to Pass this Unit
Due Date
Assessment Task
Value
Mondays 10am
Reading Quizzes (10)
5% (bonus)
Mon Aug 10th
AT1 words)
10%
Mon Aug 31st
AT2 words)
Mon Sep 21st
AT3 words)
Mon Oct 12th
AT4 Essay words)
30%
TBA
Exam
40%
Hurdle Requirements to Pass this Unit
Your overall grade for the unit must be at least 50%
You must achieve a grade of 40% or more on the final exam
You must not fail more than one assessment task (not including Reading Quizzes)
You cannot miss more than 3 tutorials

4. Clayton Lectures and Tutorials

5. Caulfield Lectures and Tutorials

6. What are the main components of arguments?
AT2: Logic & Mind
In your own words, explain what a good argument is, as defined in this class.
Using an example of your own, break down entirely the idea of a good argument, along the following lines.
What is an argument?
What are the main components of arguments?
In saying that an argument is good, which two virtues are we primarily concerned with?
How can these virtues come apart?
(Thoroughly explain your answer in your own words, and be sure to define any key terms and positions. 300 words max.)

7. Two essential criteria (the two virtues!) for a sound argument:
What is a good argument?
From the TSM Reader page 69
Good form (premises support the conclusion)
All true premises
From lecture
An argument is successful (or sound)if it provides good reasons for accepting the conclusion.
Careful:This is not the same as saying that an argument is psychologically convincing!
Two essential criteria (the two virtues!) for a sound argument:
1. The premises should all be true
2. The conclusion should follow from the premises.

13. Deductively Valid and Inductively Strong (from TSM Reader p100)
The primary goal in argumentation is for the conclusion to follow from its basic premises either with certainty or with high probability. Technically, this means the arguer desires the argument to be deductively valid or to be inductively strong.

14. The concept of deductive validity can be given alternative definitions to help you grasp the concept. Below are five definitions. It is common to drop the word deductive from the term deductively valid:
An argument is valid if the truth of its basic premises force the conclusion to be true.
An argument is valid if it would be inconsistent for its basic premises to be true and its conclusion to be false.
An argument is valid if its conclusion follows with certainty from its basic premises.
An argument is valid if the conclusion would be true whenever the basic premises were true.
An argument is valid if it has no counterexample, that is, a possible situation that makes the premises true and the conclusion false.

15. P1. If it is raining, the party is cancelled.
P2. The party is cancelled
Therefore:
C. It is raining
Good form: no
True premises: yes
Good argument: no
This is a common invalid (fallacious) form called Affirming the consequent
P1. If A then B
P2. B
C. A

16. P1. All cats have four legs
P2. My dog has four legs
Therefore:
C. My dog is a cat
Good form: no
True premises: yes
Good argument: no

17. P1. All birds can fly
P2. Pigs are birds
Therefore:
C. Pigs can fly
Good form: yes
True premises: no
Good argument: no

18. P1. All roses are flowers.
P2. Some flowers are red.
Therefore:
C. Some roses are red.
Good form: no
True premises: yes
Good argument: no
Note that premises AND conclusion are true yet this is a invalid argument.

19. P1. Ron tutors students at Monash University
P2. Jack is tutored by Ron
Therefore:
C. Jack is a student at Monash University
Good form: yes (inductively strong)
True premises: yes
Good argument: yes

20. P1. Ron only tutors students at Monash University
P2. Jack is tutored by Ron
Therefore:
C. Jack is a student at Monash University
Good form: yes (deductively valid)
True premises: yes
Good argument: yes

21. AT2: Logic & Mind
(2) In his meditation, Descartes concludes that he is in essence an immaterial thing. How does he reach this conclusion exactly?
(Thoroughly explain your answer in your own words, and be sure to define any key terms and positions. 300 words max.) 

22. MULTIPLE-CHOICE
Why does Descartes hold that he is essentially a thinking thing?
Because:
a. He can conceive of himself as existing without being extended.
b. He cannot conceive of himself as existing without thinking.
c. He can conceive of his body as existing without thinking.
d. He cannot conceive of his body as existing without being extended.

23. Descartes’ analysis of mind and matter
Descartes is interested in the essential properties of things: the properties that cannot be stripped off a thing without stopping the thing from being what it is. He finds, via the cogito, that the essence of the mental is to be thinking – it’s a res cogitans.
The essence of the material is to have extension – it’s res extensa. The key tool is to ask whether there is any contradiction involved in conceiving of the thing without a given property – if there is, then that property is essential for that thing. On the other hand, if it is possible to split the thing apart from the property without making
the thing cease to be what it is – if for example god could do it (see Med 6) – then they are distinct.

24. From Descartes Discourse on Method (1637)
I then considered attentively what I was; and I saw that while I could feign that I had no body, that there was no world, and no place existed for me to be in, I could not feign that I was not; on the contrary, from the mere fact that I thought of doubting about other truths it evidently and certainly followed that I existed. On the other hand, if I had merely ceased to be conscious, even if everything else that I had ever imagined had been true, I had no reason to believe that I should still have existed. From this I recognized that I was a substance whose whole essence and nature is to be conscious and whose being requires no place and depends on no material thing. Thus this self, that is to say the soul, by which I am what I am, is entirely distinct from the body, and is even more easily known; and even if the body were not there at all the soul would be just what it is.
Descartes: Philosophical Writings, translated and edited by E. Anscombe and P. T. Geach (1971)

26. Mind versus matter in Descartes’ universe
MATTER The ‘essence’ of matter is extension (taking up space) Matter has no mental properties at all; only shape, size and motion Matter is divisible; physical things have parts Matter can be destroyed
MIND
The ‘essence’ of mind is thinking (consciousness)
Minds have no mass, shape or size. They no location in space
Minds are not divisible; they do not literally have parts
Minds are indestructible

27. What is the mind? [Maybe it’s the wrong question]
What is intelligence?
What is thinking?
What is reasoning?
What is calculating?
What is self-awareness?
What is consciousness?
What is language?
What are emotions?
What is inquisitivenesss?
What is creativity?
What is learning?

30. ‘The original question “Can machines think
‘The original question “Can machines think?” I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion.’
Turing TSM Reader p132

31. Essay Topics
Write on one of the following topics.
1. Time Travel
How can David Lewis's solution to the Grandfather paradox be used to solve the problem of the logically pernicious self-inhibitor discussed in your Unit Reader? Be sure to clearly lay out the problem and solution to the grandfather paradox, draw the parallels between that paradox and the logically pernicious self-inhibitor problem. 
Required reading:
David Lewis, 'The Paradoxes of Time Travel'
2. Free Will
Consider this argument: 'If the future is already determined, then it must be possible to know in advance what will happen. But, if that is so, then free will is impossible.' Do you agree? Is there any satisfactory way of acting freely if determinism is true?
David Lewis, 'The Paradoxes of time Travel'
Richard Taylor, 'Freedom, Determinism and Fate'
Kane, ‘Libertarianism’
3. Thinking Machines
On the question whether machines can think, Descartes and Turing are in strong disagreement. Evaluate the arguments on either side. Does Searle's 'Chinese Room' argument help resolve the debate?
Alan Turing, 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence'
John Searle, 'Minds, Brains and Programs'
(Quotes from Descartes can be found in the Notes to Part 3 of the Study Guide.)

32. 4. The Self
If you teletransport to another planet, we might wonder whether the resulting individual is you---whether you've really survived. Parfit argues that identity is not what matters when we consider our futures in such cases. How does he reach this conclusion by considering the problem of fission? Is this a good argument? Is there more reason to think that identity does matter to survival? (Here you might focus more on Williams or Lewis, rather than discussing them both in detail.)
Required reading:
Derek Parfit, 'Personal Identity'
Bernard Williams, 'The Self and the Future'
David Lewis, 'Survival and Identity'
5. Knowledge
Gettier raises some serious challenges for the traditional account of knowledge. Nozick develops his tracking account in part to answer the problems identified by Gettier. After explaining both Gettier's challenge and Nozick's proposal, evaluate the strength of Nozick's proposal as a response to Gettier's challenge.
Edmund Gettier, 'Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?'
Robert Nozick, 'Knowledge and Skepticism'

33. AT1.3 (Due 10am September 21st)
Searle’s Chinese Room argument attacks the Turing Test by trying to show that even if a machine passes the test it still may not be thinking. How exactly is the argument supposed to show this?
AT2: Essay Assignment (Due: October 12, 10am)
3. On the question whether machines can think, Descartes and Turing are in strong disagreement. Evaluate the arguments on either side. Does Searle's 'Chinese Room' argument help resolve the debate?

34. Cognitive Science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence, embracing philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology. Its intellectual origins are in the mid-1950s when researchers in several fields began to develop theories of mind based on complex representations and computational procedures.

35. Functionalism
Functionalism in the philosophy of mind is the doctrine that what makes something a mental state of a particular type does not depend on its internal constitution, but rather on the way it functions, or the role it plays, in the system of which it is a part.

36. Does what is in the black box matter?

37. Equal Pay for monkeys
Self Recognition
Kanzi

38. http://www.cyc.com/ Chinese Room 60 Seconds
Winner of 2013 Loebner Prize
Quite Interesting - Asimo
COG - Rodney Brooks
CYC - Douglas Lenat

39. What is the mind? [Maybe it’s the wrong question]
What is intelligence?
What is thinking?
What is reasoning?
What is calculating?
What is self-awareness?
What is consciousness?
What is language?
What are emotions?
What is inquisitivenesss?
What is creativity?
What is learning?

43. Anthropomorphism & Anthropocentrism
Anthropomorphism : we project human characteristics onto animals and things.
Anthropocentrism: we see things from a human perspective and judge intelligence and other criteria for personhood by human standards.

44. Which has a mind? Which thinks? Which has consciousness?

45. Cognitive Science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence, embracing philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology. Its intellectual origins are in the mid-1950s when researchers in several fields began to develop theories of mind based on complex representations and computational procedures.

46. Functionalism
Functionalism in the philosophy of mind is the doctrine that what makes something a mental state of a particular type does not depend on its internal constitution, but rather on the way it functions, or the role it plays, in the system of which it is a part.

47. What is the mind? [Maybe it’s the wrong question]
What is intelligence?
What is thinking?
What is reasoning?
What is calculating?
What is self-awareness?
What is consciousness?
What is language?
What are emotions?
What is inquisitivenesss?
What is creativity?
What is learning?