SUMMARY OF PHILOSOPHY OF MIND

Revision on Philosophy of Mind

1.      What is Functionalism?

Functionalism is the theory that state that the mental state is a functional state and is always in relation to something. It maintains that the mind is only identified in terms of its role or function in  relations to things, either as a cause of behaviour or as an effect of perception. This theory argues that the mind is both an effect and a cause. It tries to overcome some of the problems with behaviourism and identity theory to forge them into a new, materialist view of the mind. It exponent include Hilary Putnam, David Lewis and David Armstrong.  Functionalism agrees that brain states are responsible for mental states, but disagrees that they are identical with them. hence, it argues that neurological states or brain activity help to realise mental states which then lead to behaviour. In this way, it solves the main problems with the behaviourism and identity theory by proposing that brain states are “low level” activities that help realise “high level” mental states. Functionalists view the mental states in terms of an empirical computational theory of the mind. Hence, whatever that works through the process of input, processing (belief) and output has a mind. In terms of the brain, mental states are dependent upon brain states or neurological activities in the same way that the functions of a computer program are dependent upon computer hardware. This simply means that brain states help to realise mental states and that the mind is in fact a total functional system.

2.      How does functionalism differ from behaviourism and identity theory?

Behaviourism cannot account for mental states. It attempts to account for the mind in terms of actual or observable behaviour. This theory is faced with the problem of how to account for different behaviours that can result from the same stimulus. Another one is how to account for different stimuli that can produce the same response. Functionalism assumes that the functional states cause behaviour, hence, they are not identical with behaviour. Functionalism allows both an appearance of choice and the presence of beliefs independent of any possible behaviour.

Unlike identity theory, in functionalism, brain states are not mental states. Functionalism differs from identity theory in that it does not matter what the physical cause of the mental or functional state is. Thus, brain state is an immaterial because there are any number of different ways in which such an experience might be realised.

Critique of Functionalism

First is the Homunculus problem. it shies away from the question “What is mind”. This is because functionalism only states what the mind does. Secondly, since mind is that which function in similar way (belief and process), this implies that even non living things have mind. Third, does the absence of a corresponding behaviour negate the mind? Furthermore, functionalism seems untenable to have attempted to use irrational being- computer to explicate the mind of a rational being- man. More so, functionalism have not been able to adequately account for qualia.

In conclusion, functionalism employs a computer model to describes the mind as a “multiply realisable” total functional system. That is, it is life the calculations and rules that make up a software program that can be run on any machine. Consequently, it favours artificial intelligence.

3.      What is Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial connotes an imitation of nature. It is that which is made by man from the natural things. This imitation ranges from physical out look of man to the internal intricacies found in the human system. Intelligence connotes ability to think well and extensively. Artificial intelligence (AI) is an area of computer science that emphasizes the making of intelligent machines that work and react like humans. AI was introduced by John  Mc McCarthy. Examples of AI include robots, computers. Functionalism favours AI because of its theory of mind as that which involves input-processing-output principle. Artificial Intelligence is the concept that it is possible for a machine to “think”. This concept is a controversial one. Among the exponents of this view, the group known as Strong Artificial Intelligence argues that it is possible that one day a computer will be invented which can be called a mind in the fullest sense of the word. This implies that it will be capable of mental activities such as thinking, reasoning and imagining. The second group, weak Artificial Intelligence, on the other hand, argues that computers can only appear to think and are not actually conscious in the same way as human brains are.

Alan Turing (1912-54), an English mathematician developed a test in defence of Artificial Intelligence. The test is based on something called “the Imitation Game” in which 3 people, each in separate rooms, communicate by Teletype. Each of the 3 people has a specific role: one acts as an interrogator whose job it is to find out what sex the other two people are; the other two (one man and one woman) one whose role it is to answer honestly and the other dishonestly. The interrogator must therefore answer the interrogator’s questions- one honestly and one dishonestly. This game involves replacing one of the people with a computer that has been programmed to deceive the interrogator. If, as with a human subject, the interrogator was deceived a certain percentage of the time (say 70%) then the machine can be said to have passed the test (it is conscious and intelligent). However, there currently exists no computer that can get anywhere near passing this test. This is because any interrogator would find it easy to devise questions which a machine would have difficulty answering.

Conversely,  in his The Chinese Room Argument , John Searle critique Alan Turing argument. Searle imagines that someone who does not understand Chinese is placed in a room with an “In” hatch and an “Out” hatch. Through one hatch come Chinese Symbols, which the person responds to by arranging other Chinese symbols according to rules laid down in a book and sending them out through the other hatch. If we imagine that the “In” hatch provides questions in Chinese which the person “answers” by following rules set out in the book, we have what Searle considers a certain view of artificial intelligence. But would the person in the room really be said to understand Chinese? Searle thinks no and therefore argues that no view of artificial intelligence could ever result in a truly humanly conscious being since all that is ever happening is rule-based activity which is not how humans work.

The summary of Alan and Searle Arguments:

Alan Turing's 1950 article Computing Machinery and Intelligence discussed conditions for considering a machine to be intelligent. He argued that if the machine could successfully pretend to be human to a knowledgeable observer then you certainly should consider it intelligent. This test would satisfy most people but not all philosophers. The observer could interact with the machine and a human by teletype (to avoid requiring that the machine imitate the appearance or voice of the person), and the human would try to persuade the observer that it was human and the machine would try to fool the observer.     

The Turing test is a one-sided test. A machine that passes the test should certainly be considered intelligent, but a machine could still be considered intelligent without knowing enough about humans to imitate a human. Furthermore, John Searle argues that input-processing-output system does not imply intelligence. He debunked Turing’s by his Chinese Room experiment, where he demonstrated that computers only possess as-if intentionality, a-if belief and as-if understanding. Hence, AI is not intelligent. However, Paul and Patricia Churchland refute Searle’s argument by positing that the concept of intrinsic intentionality is elusive and non-existent. More so, AI are not living beings, hence, do not have quale

The Implications of AI

First, the epistemological implication of AI is that it naturalises epistemology. It equates epistemology with natural science making it descriptive thereby removing it from philosophy. Does the computer knows more than what it has it has been programmed to do? More so, if we affirm Artificial intelligence, how can we account for its intentionality and qualia? AI lacks capacity for discretion and discernment. Does it has its belief and self consciousness?

Ethically, AI is based on pragmatism and not morality. To affirm AI, implies that it has free will. Hence it is a moral being which ought to have the same right and responsibility with human beings. Since AI is programmed it implies determinism. If it has mind like man then the both should be identical in that respect. If AI is identical with human being, hence the both must  have the same features. One of the feature of AI is that it is determined, thus this implies that man is determined. Therefore to affirm AI implies that human are determined. But are human beings determined?

Other critiques of Artificial Intelligence

For John Pollock, a materialist, there is no problem with having these computers and robots around by simply defending the theses that “mental events are simply physical events which can be perceived by our internal sense”. For him, a statue is more than just a lump of clay because of the form which the sculptor has given to it, so also, man is a physical object which supervenes on his body. In reaction to this view, for Oladele Balogun, machines are incapable of mind-body problem because they are incapable reflection, they can’t form intentions because they lack self-consciousness.

No matter the sophistications of computers, they remain the work of humans, thus, the work can never be greater than the human who made it. It is true that computers can deal accurately with mathematical problems, however, it was the human mind which conceived of the answer first and programmed it into the computer notwithstanding, the human mind is more capable than this, it is inventive, creative and innovative but computers simply reproduce what is stored in them by humans.

Advantages of AI: there are numerous benefits associated with AI which include:

        i.            It is commendable in terms of precision, accuracy and efficiency

      ii.            It has capacity for preservation of knowledge and information for a long period of time.

    iii.            It encourages increase in production, economic activities and transportation.

    iv.            It reduces cost of production

      v.            It increases man’s live span by replace humans in dangerous situations.  Not only can they withstand radioactive elements but they also work better in places where there is confined space and little oxygen to breathe.  This replacement will eliminate unwarranted deaths due to potential accidents and unsafe conditions.

Disadvantage of AI:

It causes unemployment, they can dominate human race, pollution, it makes human lazy.

Conclusion

From the foregoing, we have seen that Artificial intelligence is a logical conclusion of materialism especially functionalism. It has been shown that AI has the capacity for seemingly intelligent actions. However, this does not imply that it has minds. Notwithstanding, this might be a possibility for machines to simulate the mind as claimed by the functionalists. Nevertheless, the fact remains that man as AI’s maker will always have a higher grade of intelligence in as much as AI is an imitation of the human mind.

4.      The Problem of Personal Identity

In human development, human being experience various changes physically, cognitively and psychosocially. Amidst these changes one may be inclined to ask, Who am I? Am I the same person over a period of time? What is that in me amidst the obvious changes in me that assures me that I am the same person many years ago? Is change compatible with sameness? What constitutes one’s identity- mind or body? All these questions constitute problem to personal identity.

The term identity connotes the following:

Ø  Oneness, sameness. The notion of something remaining one and the same does not imply change.

Ø  Awareness of being the same. Conscious unit at different times and places.

Ø  The ability to know something that has happened or is happening to one.

Senses of Personal Identity: There are two senses, namely,

ü  Numeric: things are necessarily

ü  Qualitative sense of identity.

Aristotle attempts to proffer a solution to this problem of continuity and change. He posits that everything is a composite of two elements namely, substance and accidents. Whereas the accidents of a thing such as colour, size, height, change; the substance does not change, it remains what it is and this what constitutes the identity of a thing. He calls substance ‘form’ while the accidents matter. The substance or form of a thing is what constitutes the very nature of that thing as well as its identity. This the hylemorphyic theory of Aristotle, the theory of matter and form. Whereas the matter of a thing changes, the form remains the same. If the form changes, then the very nature that is substance of that thing has changed and so it is no longer that thing. It automatically becomes something else. In application to human being, the matter is the body while the form is the soul. The body changes but the soul does not change hence the human person remains the same in spite of tremendous changes in his body, from birth to old age.

Critique of Idealists views

First, if the mind because it is the thinking faculty defines one’s personal identity, this would be so as long as that mind thinks otherwise this theory is not tenable. But does human being always think? Does one thinks when one is unconscious such as sleeping, in a coma, or knocked out. Is it reasonable to accept what is not constant to be the defining factor of one’s personal identity which ought to be constant and permanent.

Critique of Materialists’ views

Hume’s empiricism leads him to a dead-end and absurd conclusions. For him to posits that he could not find oneself when he entered into himself in retrospection. He affirms perception, but denies perceiver. He admits experience, yet he denies the subject of the experience because the subject of experience is not part of the experience. He could not find it because it is not an empirical entity.

Neurophilosophy

A major turning point in philosophers' interest in neuroscience came with the publication of Patricia Churchland's Neurophilosophy (1986). The Churchlands (Patricia and Paul) were already notorious for advocating eliminative materialism (see the next section). She was introducing philosophy of science to neuroscientists and neuroscience to philosophers. Nothing could be more obvious, she insisted, than the relevance of empirical facts about how the brain works to concerns in the philosophy of mind. Her term for this interdisciplinary method was “co-evolution” (borrowed from biology). This method seeks resources and ideas from anywhere on the theory hierarchy above or below the question at issue. Standing on the shoulders of philosophers like Quine and Sellars, Churchland insisted that specifying some point where neuroscience ends and philosophy of science begins is hopeless because the boundaries are poorly defined. Neurophilosophers would pick and choose resources from both disciplines as they saw fit. Three themes predominate Churchland's philosophical discussion: developing an alternative to the logical empiricist theory of intertheoretic reduction; responding to property-dualistic arguments based on subjectivity and sensory qualia; and responding to anti-reductionist multiple realizability arguments. Paul Churchland (1996) has carried on the attack on property-dualistic arguments for the irreducibility of conscious experience and sensory qualia. He argues that acquiring some knowledge of existing sensory neuroscience increases one's ability to ‘imagine’ or ‘conceive of’ a comprehensive neurobiological explanation of consciousness. He defends this conclusion using a thought-experiment based on the history of optics and electromagnetism.

Eliminative Materialism and Philosophy Neuralized

Eliminative materialism (EM) is the conjunction of two claims. First, our common sense ‘belief-desire’ conception of mental events and processes, our ‘folk psychology,’ is a false and misleading account of the causes of human behavior. Second, like other false conceptual frameworks from both folk theory and the history of science, it will be replaced by, rather than smoothly reduced or incorporated into, a future neuroscience. According to Churchland, folk psychology is the collection of common homilies about the causes of human behavior. EM is physicalist in the classical sense, postulating some future brain science as the ultimately correct account of (human) behavior. It is eliminative in predicting the future removal of folk psychological kinds from our post-neuroscientific ontology. EM proponents often employ scientific analogies. Hence, continuing development in neuroscience will reveal that there are no such things as beliefs and desires as characterized by common sense. Many eliminative materialists assume that folk psychology is committed to propositional representations and computations over their contents that mimic logical inferences (Paul Churchland, 1981; Stich, 1983; Patricia Churchland, 1986).