Lecture 8: Thinking computers and free will

Question 1

open vraag gaat wss over materialism, functionalism, multiple realizibility en reduction

Answer 1

dus goed leren

Question 2

wat is de status quo over mind-brain

Answer 2

individual mental states within a person at a certain time do correspond to brain states in that person at that specific time. however, due to mental realizability we cannot define these via the type-type identity theory, because this blocks the bridge laws. it is not possible to reduce laws/theories at the lower level.

= non-reductive materialism

Question 3

wat is reduction

Answer 3

wanneer je een higher level theory (ideal gas law -> if temperature is increased then pressure increases) uitlegd door middel van een lower level theory (statistical mechanics -> if particles move faster they will have higher force).

Question 4

er zijn niet veel voorbeelden waar reduction niet werkt

Answer 4

oke

Question 5

wat is een vb waarin het niet werkt

Answer 5

meteoroloy - higher level
geology - lower level

je kan niet predicten van wat voor soort steen (graniet, volcano, sandstone) een climate zone opgemaakt is (one side could be wet, one side could be dry)

Question 6

wat is een voorbeeld van reduction dat niet werkt in psychologie

Answer 6

tought of death -> emotions of fear

maar dit valt niet terug te leiden naar lower order neurology: want de tought of death kan komen door neuro pattern in cortex op elk punt, en de emotions of fear is een verzameling van increased heart rate, sweaty hands etc. dus het is niet 1:1, en er zijn ook individual differences.

Question 7

materialists would describe that…

Answer 7

every mental state is related to one brainstate at a certain moment.

Question 8

wat is de weak form van identity theory

Answer 8

token-token (er is altijd iets verschillends bij verschillende personen)

Question 9

wat zou je zien bij type-type identity

Answer 9

allemaal dezelfde brainstates bij een mental state (thoughts about death = brainstate f)

Question 10

multiple realizability blocks….

Answer 10

reduction & type-type identity

Question 11

for reduction, … identity is not enough, you need … identity

Answer 11

token-token is not enough
you need type-type identity

Question 12

waarom is token-token niet genoeg voor reduction?

Answer 12

This is because the lower-order collection of realizations (“sandstone or granite or volcano or …”) from the lower-order perspective is heterogeneous and arbitrary; can only be “grouped” from the higher order perspective. that is why people who believe in multiple realizability find reduction unlikely

Question 13

• But note that reduction is an incredibly great achievement that is also rare in exact sciences
• Without it, brain science is just as interesting!
• Specific mechanisms at the lower level can be informative for the higher level, without reducing that higher level
• Because mental states are realized differently across people and across time, it is more helpful to define them by their role in the system than by the brain state they are realized in, which brings us to functionalism

Answer 13

oke

Question 14

John Bickle argues that reduction is possible, but it changes the meaning of the theoretical concepts

Answer 14

oke

Question 15

functionalism vond…

Answer 15

we shouldnt really think of mental states as the brain states, but rather the role that they play.

Question 16

if you believe in multiple realizability, you also believe that….

Answer 16

why not realise it in something else than a brain?
-> turing machine

Question 17

wat liet de turing machine zien

Answer 17

if these thought processes are essentially computer programs, then we should also be able to implement a mind in a computer/robot. -> the brain is thus not essential, as long as the robot can realise the right programs, then this robot also thinks!!

opens up the question: is consciousness really limited to us?

Question 18

if a turing machine can think a little bit…

Answer 18

then it is just a matter of building a very good turing machine that will think as well as we do.

Question 19

turing test=

Answer 19

what would we say if we had a computer that behaves indistinguishable from a human being? -> in that case you have to grant the computer consciousness.
but: from what moment on should we say that the case?

test: you are communicating with two people, a person and a computer, and if we do not distinguish between computer and human, than we should grant that computer consciousness (would be unfair and discriminating). turing maakt hier dus een soort ethisch punt: waar heeft de robot consciousness?

Question 20

what is the difficulty van the turing test

Answer 20

how long can we deny a laptop consciousness? is it fair to not give robots this? Bv als riet nu zou vertellen dat ze een robot is, dan zouden we niet mogen discrimineren?

Question 21

as soon as we stop denying electronics consciousness, there are a lot of implications

Answer 21

betalen voor services die ze doen, etc

Question 22

wat gebeurde er in de 70s-80s

Answer 22

• the thinking computer is coming!
• multiple realizability: we can transfer consciousness from one medium to another -> we could transfer our own minds to things.
• so we also become immortal

Question 23

who demolished this point of view (of being immortal)

Answer 23

John Searle

Question 24

wat deed searle:

Answer 24

The Chinese Room:

he wanted to show that the turing test is too weak.

a thought experiment, in which you are literally a Turing machine. you are in a room where everyone speaks chinese and you dont. you receive notes, and you have a book that tells you what to respond via symbols. the people outside might think that they are corresponding with someone who speaks chinese, but you actually dont. -> here we do meet the turing test, but we would not ever conclude that the person speaks chinese. the computer does not actually understands us, there is no meaning at all. therefore this computer should not have consciousness.

Question 25

verschil weak version en strong version van AI

Answer 25

• weak; we kunnen er van leren
• strong: actually consciousness

Question 26

wat zei searle dus over de turing test

Answer 26

the turing test may be necessary, but it is not sufficient ground for consciousness.

he thought a computer could never develop meaning -> it is a useful tool for understanding human cognition, but only biological organisms can have consciousness.

Question 27

wat gebeurde er door searle zijn publicatie

Answer 27

the strong ai thesis failed, because searle claimed consciousness is an essential biological phenomenon. the functionalists are furious: “we shouldnt ask whether the person in the room speaks chinese, but whether the system as a whole does -> the whole room with the person and the paper does read chinese? maybe it is the system as a whole that understands chinese” hier reageerde searle weer op met dat de theory echt implausibel is. hij zag functionalists als een ideology (2 verschillende subsystems voor engels en chinees). hij dacht ook dat computers geen intenties konden krijgen, en daardoor niet dingen kunnen wensen, en daardoor geen subjectieve experiences.

Question 28

hoe is het debat met searle nu relevant

Answer 28

moeten we chatgpt consciousness geven? of is het een simulatie (zoals searle zei)

will AI ever be able to have intentions? can it wish for things? can it have emotions?

Question 29

qualia=

Answer 29

subjective, individual experiences. (hard to make sense of what these are exactly, why we have them and how they relate to our material description of the world)

Question 30

suppose that Fred is discovered: has better colour recognition than anyone else.

Answer 30

Freds optical system is able to sort out the colours on the spectrum, there are optical differences in the brain (and therefore there are relations in the material).

Question 31

waar was het fred verhaal een soort metafoor voor

Answer 31

qualia; even though we know what happens in the brain, what is material, we do not know what fred’s subjective experience is like

Question 32

mary the colour scientists

Answer 32

• mary born in black and white room, never sees colour
• learns everything there is to know about color perception
• will she learn anything new when she goes outside for the first time?

Question 33

wat als je ja antwoord op de vraag van mary

Answer 33

this means that Mary’s physical knowledge does not include everything. therefore knowledge about physicala processes is therefore not the same as knowledge about subjective experience.

= materialism has a hard time explaining qualia

Question 34

thomas nagel zei…

Answer 34

what is it like to be a bat: wonders whether it is possible to learn from objective descriptions from ‘what it is like to be a bat’ and see the world through sound. he concludes that this is impossible, and therefore subjective experience escapes the grasp of science

Question 35

these thought experiments pose a problem for….

Answer 35

functionalists & materialists

Question 36

functionalism & computers=

Answer 36

a turing machine can do operations similar to logical reasoning, but qualia?

Question 37

materialism vs dualism (in terms of qualia)

Answer 37

if all there is is physical, why do qualia escape a physical description of the world

Question 38

neither a … nor a … description of the mind seems to capture qualia

Answer 38

functional & material

Question 39

dus welke stroming kan wel qualia uitleggen

Answer 39

dualism (er is gewoon een nonphysical substance die subjectieve experiences veroorzaakt)

Question 40

the hard problem =

Answer 40

many people think the brain produces experiences: “if a certain brain process occurs, then there is a subjective experience, otherwise there is not”.

but it is not clear how this existence of subjective experiences can follow from theories about the physical reality

(how is subjective experience possible at all? why do the physical properties that we have, come with subjective experiences?)

Question 41

wat zei chalmers

Answer 41

consciousness does not really fit in the picture of scientific explanations between biology, chemistry and psychology.

Question 42

free will probleem

Answer 42

the body has to obey the laws of physics, but then where do you make space for the mind to have an influence?

if the body behaves like a machine where physical causes have physical effects, how can we make room for free will?

Question 43

wat is het lastige aan vrije wil, wat zijn de consequenties als bijvoorbeeld blijkt dat we dat niet zouden hebben

Answer 43

we are used to holding people responsible for their behaviour, which requires some sort of freedom. if that would not exist, our whole justice system would be based on nothing

Question 44

we normally speak of free will when….

Answer 44

• the intention of behaviour precedes behaviour
• the behaviour was not necessary (you could have done something else)
• the intention of behaviour was the cause of the behaviour

Question 45

hoe kijkt materialism naar deze free will

Answer 45

die 3 criteria werken niet goed door materialism.

Question 46

william james=

Answer 46

my first act in free will shall be that i believe in free will

Question 47

skinner =

Answer 47

did not believe in free will

Question 48

wat voor experiment over intention and behaviour (free will)

Answer 48

Libet: investigated the timing of decisions versus behaviour

empirical studies seem to show that behaviour is already started in the brain before the decision is made

brain activity (=physical activation) well before they said they were aware of their decision. ver voor dat ze het zeiden of zagen etc. -> already activate behaviour before your decision.

Question 49

wat zei libet

Answer 49

he did not deny free will, he said we prepare for many different actions, and free will is the decision to inhibit some of these.

Question 50

determinism=

Answer 50

if you would know all of the particles, the direction that they went to and the speed etc, at one time point you can fully predict the physical state at t+1

states that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes regarded as external to the will. Some philosophers have taken determinism to imply that individual human beings have no free will and cannot be held morally responsible for their actions.

Question 51

dus wat impliceert determinism

Answer 51

there is no free will

Question 52

is absence of determinism enough?

Answer 52

• a strategy to regain freedom is to deny determinism
• but is ‘probability of behaviour’ enough?
• exercising your will also presupposes determinism
• if my intention only determines my behaviour with some probability, i dont experience that as free will!
• does determinism contradict free will?

there is always chance, instead of necessarily one new state.

Question 53

wat is de hele conclusie van dit verhaal

Answer 53

mental states are not independent causes. the real cause of your behavior is a physical state of your brain, which is just stuck in a causal chain

Question 54

what are ways out of our free will issue

Answer 54

• criticise Libets experiment (increase om een andere reden)
• maintain that physics does not fully describe the world
• become a compatibilitst (both free will and determinism)
• conceptualize free will differently (not as a cause)

Question 55

free will is now often considered as an … but it may also be …

Answer 55

explanatory entity
a phenomenon to be explained

Question 56

phenomenon to be explained =

Answer 56

we differ in autonomy from cars and stones, therefore we call this phenomenon free will. question = how does that difference come about (difference in autonomy)

Question 57

conclusie

Answer 57

• no one really understands how the mind relates to the body
• subjective experiences is a mystery
• demand for wanting free will puts these things on an edge
• misschien witnissen wij wel de breakthrough!