Searle: Philosophy of Mind, lecture 1

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Strong rec MmmHmm · 2016-12 · Philosophy Stack Exchange · on “What book recommendations for learning Hegel and Wittgenstein?”

1/ You could just go right to Wittgenstein's " Foundation of Mathematics [LINK] " but " Philosophical Investigations [LINK] " is also a good read. 2/ You could do a lot worse than starting off with Russell's " Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy [LINK] " Also, I highly recommend this course by Professor Keith Devlin if you are just getting started with university level math: [LINK] Harry Gensler's book " Introduction to Logic [LINK] " is an adequate start - as well, there is his " LogiCola [LINK] " software. Lastly, I would strongly recommend that you sit down with Professor John R. Searle and listen to his three free course lectures from philosophy of mind, language and society [this video]

Strong rec MmmHmm · 2017-05 · Philosophy Stack Exchange · on “Intro books without historical focus”

Philosophy is love of wisdom (read: respect for obtaining knowledge); its purview logic, rhetoric and reason; its domains: epistemology and ontology. Professor Keith Devlin's class, " Introduction to Mathematical Thinking [LINK] " is an excellent primer course for logic if you are just getting started with university level math. Harry Gensler's book " Introduction to Logic [LINK] " is also a good start - as well, there is his " LogiCola [LINK] " software. I would strongly recommend that you sit down with Professor John R. Searle and listen to his three free course lectures from philosophy of mind, language and society [this video] . They are on iTunes as well as YouTube. For an example of his thi

Recommends MmmHmm · 2017-03 · Philosophy Stack Exchange · on “What did Thomas Nagel intend to distinguish, in distinguishing 'impression' vs 'perception of reality'?”

@Gary ::tips hat, nods:: Searle is a great author and lecturer - if you like his writing, check out his lectures on-line (audio of his entire undergad courses at UC Berkeley are available online) on [this video] or iTunes University.

Recommends MmmHmm · 2017-04 · Philosophy Stack Exchange · on “How to start Philosophy and find the branches that are related to my questions?”

Welcome to philosophy.SE - have you taken a logic class? Have you studied physics [LINK] ? If yes to both, start here: [this video] otherwise, ground your philosophical inquiries and take a logic class and study physics.

Cites Alexander S King · 2016-05 · Philosophy Stack Exchange · on “How can one refute John Searle's "syntax is not semantics" argument against strong AI?”

There are many refutations of John Searle's Chinese Room argumen [LINK] t against Strong AI. But they seem to be addressing the structure of the thought experiment itself, as opposed to the underlying epistemic principle that it is trying to illustrate. This principle is "syntax is not semantics" (See these lectures [this video] by John Searle): At the end of the day, computer software, even the most advanced AI conceivable, manipulates symbols according to a set of syntactic rules, regardless of their meaning. Anybody who has studied formal logic knows that rules like De Morgans laws or the laws of idempotency ( e.g. A ^ A = A ) are independent of the meaning of the symbols being processed. This

Cites Alexander S King · 2016-05 · Philosophy Stack Exchange · on “What's the problem with physicalism in philosophy of mind?”

First a comment: I am surprised at your stating that "It seems that physicalism and functionalism in philosophy of mind has fallen out of popularity and into much criticism". All of the philosophy of mind courses and lectures I have listened to state that functionalism is the most popular position in philosophy of mind. Can you provide a source? Second: It should be noted that physicalism and functionalism are not the same thing. One can be a physicalist without being a functionalist (e.g. those who subscribe to type-identity or to eliminativism). In fact John Searle accuses functionalists of being closeted dualists ( see these recorded lectures on philosophy of mind by him [this video] -- I forg

Cites Alexander S King · 2016-06 · Philosophy Stack Exchange · on “How does human intelligence differ from Searle's chinese room?”

John Searle's Chinese Room example is clumsy and is vulnerable to all sorts of refutations from a strictly technical point of view (The systems reply, The brain simulator reply, etc...). But this is unfair to the argument, because beneath the awkward thought experiment there is a deeper epistemological question which does warrant serious consideration. John Searle in his lectures [this video] goes into the details and often repeats that "Syntax is not Semantics" (See the SEP article) [LINK] : Anybody who has studied formal logic knows that rules like De Morgans laws or the laws of idempotency ( e.g. A ^ A = A ) are independent of the meaning of the symbols being processed. A rule of the type IF A

Cites Alexander S King · 2016-09 · Philosophy Stack Exchange · on “Does this reasoning refute John Searle's Chinese Room argument?”

First, as Luís Henrique pointed out, the physical feasibility of this computer is debatable at best, but for the sake of argument, lets assume that it is. Level 1 answer No , your reasoning does not refute the Chinese Room argument. Underlying the Chinese Argument is Searle's more fundamental principle that syntax is not semantics [LINK] . Your super-powerful computer, for all of its computational and memory capabilities, is still manipulating abstract symbols, and it does so without knowing the meaning of those symbols. The millions of individual data points it is manipulating can be the electrons and nuclei of a human brain, the planets and stars in a galaxy, or the individual citizens of

Cites MmmHmm · 2017-03 · Philosophy Stack Exchange · on “Consciousness as a cause of meaningfulness”

Sure, consciousness is reducible to a subjective first-person ontology, however, we just don't have an adequate objective third-person epistemological account of how consciousness happens in the brain to say much more than neurobiological processes in the brain cause intentionality. See Searle, " The Problem of Consciousness [LINK] " for a heuristic approach to an objective third-person epistemic explanation and accounting of first-person subjective ontology. As for meaning, you might like three articles: " Literal Meaning [LINK] " by Searle, " Meaning and Truth [LINK] " by Strawson and " Utterer's Meaning and Intention [LINK] " & " Meaning [LINK] " by Grice. In Sealre's concepton even an im

Cites jeblad · 2020-12 · Philosophy Stack Exchange · on “Philosophy and the question 'When is a robot considered alive and thinking?'”

I believe it could be said to be alive, even if it isn't conscious, i.e. it is a zombie. John Searle discusses part of this in the Chinese Room argument. It is mentioned somewhere in Searle: Philosophy of Mind [this video] lectures. In Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence (ISBN 978-0-521-69191-8) there is a section Artificial Life by Mark A. Bedau with more arguments. I guess your question about whether a robot is alive is really about whether the robot is a strong AI and has achieved consciousness, and thus represent a person. The European and American view on this seems to diverge, see for example Politico: Europe divided over robot ‘personhood’ [LINK] i.e. moral status. It is not so m