Argument Essay: Can A Machine Have A Mind?

584 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Nature of psychology

Can a machine have a mind? That argument has been raging on for centuries. Plato to Descartes all the way to modern day philosophers, many philosophers have been debating whether inanimate objects can ever possess that elusive quality of the human mind known as “consciousness”. Engineers, psychologists, philosophers and many others have worked tirelessly to create artificial intelligence, in the hopes that by decode the human mind they will eventually understand it. Some have argued that human-level artificial intelligence is a pipe dream, others claim otherwise. The argument rages on.
One capacity that the human mind possesses is the ability to learn. Engineers have attempted to replicate human learning in machines by developing artificial …show more content…

He contends in an article in the British Medical Journal:
Not until a machine can write a sonnet or compose a concerto because of thoughts and emotions felt, and not by the chance fall of symbols, could we agree that machine equals brain—that is, not only write it but know that it had written it. No mechanism could feel (and not merely signal, an easy contrivance) pleasure at its successes, grief when its valves fuse, be warmed by flattery, be made miserable by its mistakes, be charmed by sex, be angry or depressed when it cannot get what it wants. (p.1110)
Megill (2014) agrees and adds that emotion also plays a role in things like selective attention, storage and retrieval of memories and facial recognition. First, the stimuli that evoke an emotional response are usually important for the organism’s survival. For example, a pedestrian is crossing the road when he sees a car speeding towards him. His attention instantly snaps onto the car because of the fear it evokes and he takes evasive action. All this takes a fraction of a second. Artificial intelligence, on the other hand, lacking emotion and the sense of urgency that comes with it, will not have the capacity to direct its attention towards the car and may be run over. Second, emotion facilitates the retrieval and storage of information. Moreover, emotionally charged information

Show More
Related

  • Views on Computationalism: Clark vs. Searle

    1315 Words  | 3 Pages

    Andy Clark strongly argues for the theory that computers have the potential for being intelligent beings in his work “Mindware: Meat Machines.” The support Clark uses to defend his claims states the similar comparison of humans and machines using an array of symbols to perform functions. The main argument of his work can be interpreted as follows:

    Read More

  • Analysis Of How To Be A Women Programmer By Ellen Ullman

    1023 Words  | 3 Pages

    deep need to probe the mysterious space between human thoughts and what is a machine can

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Ray Bradbury's 'The Veldt And August 2026'

    1171 Words  | 3 Pages

    A major falling point of robots and machines when placed in a human’s position is that robots cannot improvise. Robots can only do what they are programmed to do. if Damasio is right, emotions are ‘improvised’ by the human brain even before someone is conscious of what they are feeling. Therefore it is even harder to make machines feel true emotions. An example of this exists in Ray Bradbury’s short story “August 2026.” A completely automated house survives after nuclear warfare has devastated the Earth. Cheerful voices go on announcing schedules and birth dates, the stove prepares steaming hot food right on time, and robotic mice keep the house spotless and free of dust- in eerie contrast to the barren and destroyed city surrounding it. The house lets nothing in, closing its shutters even to birds, but lets in a sick and famished stray dog, which limps into the house and dies. The robotic mice think nothing of the dead dog but a mess that needed cleaning up: “Delicately sensing decay at last, the regiments of mice hummed out as softly as blown gray leaves in an electrical wind. Two-fifteen. The dog was gone. In the cellar, the incinerator glowed suddenly and a whirl of sparks leaped up the chimney.” The house, seeming so cheerful, caring for its attendants, has no compassion or reverence for the dog. The mice were programmed to clean up messes, and nothing beyond. This is why in science

    Read More

  • Searle Can Machine Think Summary

    501 Words  | 2 Pages

    A robot does not have a mind of its own because it is reliant on a human to give it purpose. It has no other function except for it is programmed to do. It is created without semantics and therefore cannot form it on its own. This is

    Read More

  • Consciousness In Star Trek

    1204 Words  | 3 Pages

    I believed that a human could not build a machine that is able to be conscious just like a human being. A machine was built for following orders and complete tasks, I would never thought that a machine could be built to be conscious. It never came to me that a machine can be able to show emotion, for something or someone. Or to be be aware of not only its external environment, but could be aware of its internal self as well. Although, after watching the film my perspective has changed to a certain limit. My definition of consciousness is when someone is fully aware of their surroundings and aware of the information that is presented. Once they are aware, they are cognitively able to gather that information and process it and if they are able to process that information successfully they are capable of taking decisions. A human is conscious because they make everyday decisions based on their cognitive process. Now when it comes to a machine, after watching the film it convinced me that it may be possible for a machine to be conscious as well. If a machine was built like Data it will be very intelligent and will be able to understand what is happening in his surrounding and also will be able to make decisions that will determine what the machine will do next. Therefore, I do believe a machine can be conscious, but to a certain limit. A machine can be built exactly like a human brain, to be able to be conscious and will gain more consciousness through experience. I think in order for a machine to be conscious not only it needs self-awareness and intelligence, but it also needs experience to be able to grow feelings. Like in the episode, Data as he began to gain more experience in Star Trek he began to get attached with the people he frequently encountered, began to determine what is right and what is wrong based on how he felt in what he thought was best in taking

    Read More

  • The Concept Of The Soul By Steven Pinker

    1234 Words  | 3 Pages

    Intelligence is often attributed to the idea that, as humans, we contain a soul. A commonly upheld belief is that our soul is something that we can’t touch or see but is nonetheless there. How does this apparent ‘ghost’ affect us physically then? How is it that our soul can be electrocuted or make us walk? Another theory is that the mind is made of some “extraordinary form of matter” like that which was used to build Pinocchio. Perhaps brain tissue, as this form, emits the mind? If we accept the fact that something physical and not immaterial allows humans to be intelligent, then perhaps it isn’t some unexplainable material, and instead it is the patterning of the material. The information is what is important, not some magic material or immaterial orb. Information and human intelligence do not come from sheer chance. Our mind’s ability to process information is distinctive. We can observe some sample of matter and recognize that as a symbol it carries information and as a matter is accomplishes something physical as well. Would it be possible to build a machine that could do something similar; a machine that can make marks that agree with real world events? Mathematician Alan Turing created a hypothetical machine with input and output symbols that could resemble any number of interpretations. The machine was able to use logic to make new true statements from the true statements it was given. Turing was

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Turing's Test For Machine Intelligence

    1255 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this paper I will evaluate and present A.M. Turing’s test for machine intelligence and describe how the test works. I will explain how the Turing test is a good way to answer if machines can think. I will also discuss Objection (4) the argument from Consciousness and Objection (6) Lady Lovelace’s Objection and how Turing responded to both of the objections. And lastly, I will give my opinion on about the Turing test and if the test is a good way to answer if a machine can think.

    Read More

  • The Nature Of The Mind: The Computational Theory Of Mind

    1237 Words  | 3 Pages

    For years philosophers have enquired into the nature of the mind, and specifically the mysteries of intelligence and consciousness. (O’Brien 2017) One of these mysteries is how a material object, the brain, can produce thoughts and rational reasoning. The Computational Theory of Mind (CTM) was devised in response to this problem, and suggests that the brain is quite literally a computer, and that thinking is essentially computation. (BOOK) This idea was first theorised by philosopher Hilary Putnam, but was later developed by Jerry Fodor, and continues to be further investigated today as cognitive science, modern computers, and artificial intelligence continue to advance. [REF] Computer processing machines ‘think’ by recognising information

    Read More

  • Understanding Gender Differences in Emotional Intelligence

    1351 Words  | 3 Pages

    Emotions rule the world. Every decision ever made was backed by one emotion, whether it was happiness, anger, or sadness. Relationship also thrive off of emotions, and how individuals choose to express themselves. Growing up I would watch how my dad would display his emotions and how he expressed himself. I was always intrigued by the way he seemed to not care about different things, later to find out that he really did. For some reason I just did not understand why my dad would not show affection like my mom or my grandma. As I got older I noticed that other males in my life would act similar to my dad when it came to emotions. I have always wonder why men and women displayed emotions so differently. I would ask myself was it the society that we live in, or men simply just wired differently than women. With this paper I hope to provide information that better explains why men and women are disconnected when it comes to emotions with Emotional Intelligence.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Motivation And Emotion

    886 Words  | 2 Pages

    Emotion is the “feeling” aspect of consciousness that includes physical, behavioral, and subjective (cognitive) elements. Emotion also contains three elements which are physical arousal, a certain behavior that can reveal outer feelings and inner feelings. One key part in the brain, the amygdala which is located within the limbic system on each side of the brain, plays a key role in emotional processing which causes emotions such as fear and pleasure to be involved with the human facial expressions.The common-sense theory of emotion states that an emotion is experienced first, leading to a physical reaction and then to a behavioral reaction.The James-Lange theory states that a stimulus creates a physiological response that then leads to the labeling of the emotion. The Cannon-Bard theory states that the physiological reaction and the emotion both use the thalamus to send sensory information to both the cortex of the brain and the organs of the sympathetic nervous system. The facial feedback hypothesis states that facial expressions provide feedback to the brain about the emotion being expressed on the face, increasing all the emotions. In Schachter and Singer’s cognitive arousal theory, also known as the two-factor theory, states both the physiological arousal and the actual arousal must occur before the emotion itself is experienced, based on cues from the environment. Lastly, in the cognitive-mediational theory

    Read More

  • Can Machines Think?

    2586 Words  | 6 Pages

    The traditional notion that seeks to compare human minds, with all its intricacies and biochemical functions, to that of artificially programmed digital computers, is self-defeating and it should be discredited in dialogs regarding the theory of artificial intelligence. This traditional notion is akin to comparing, in crude terms, cars and aeroplanes or ice cream and cream cheese. Human mental states are caused by various behaviours of elements in the brain, and these behaviours in are adjudged by the biochemical composition of our brains, which are responsible for our thoughts and functions. When we discuss mental states of systems it is important to distinguish between human brains and that of any natural or artificial organisms which is said to have central processing systems (i.e. brains of chimpanzees, microchips etc.). Although various similarities may exist between those systems in terms of functions and behaviourism, the intrinsic intentionality within those systems differ extensively. Although it may not be possible to prove that whether or not mental states exist at all in systems other than our own, in this paper I will strive to present arguments that a machine that computes and responds to inputs does indeed have a state of mind, but one that does not necessarily result in a form of mentality. This paper will discuss how the states and intentionality of digital computers are different from the states of human brains and yet they are indeed states of a mind resulting from various functions in their central processing systems.

    Read More

  • What Is A Successful Future Self?

    1100 Words  | 3 Pages

    Discuss the "cognition versus biology" debate in the study of emotion. Outline first the cognitive position and then the biological position. Discuss one possible, satisfying resolution to the cognition versus biology debate, using an original example to illustrate this

    Read More

  • Could A Machine Think

    755 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Chapter seven of Problems from Philosophy we are asked to analyze the question “could a machine think (Rachels 83)?” This question has perplexed a vast amount of intellectuals for centuries, some of whom agree that it is possible, meanwhile others disagree entirely. Perhaps the question isn’t of could a machine think, but would humans be the ones to build it? For instance, the human genome is an example of program execution similar to that of a machine.

    Read More

  • Do Computers Think?

    831 Words  | 2 Pages

    Well as I said we first must define ‘to think’. What does that mean? Webster’s New Compact Dictionary defines ‘think’ as "1. Have a mind. 2. Believe. 3. Employ the mind.". It defines mind as ‘to think’. So does this mean that if you can think does this mean you have a mind? My opinion is that, according to this definition, computers can think. A computer can give you an answer to the question ‘What is 4x13?’, so it can think. What’s that? You say it’s just programmed to do that, if no one programmed it wouldn’t be able to do that. Well how did you know how to answer the question? Your teacher or parent’s or someone taught it to you. So you were programmed, same as the computer was.

    Read More

  • The Human Brain versus Computers

    645 Words  | 2 Pages

    In addition, emotions can be only transmitted by the human brain and cannot be programmed into a computer. One of the reasons is there are too many emotions to be described and they can be a mixture of feelings that it would be hard to put it into one category. Furthermore, the computer wouldn’t have the ability to know to what situation he should apply certain emotion. And different emotions can be applied to the same situation; it all depends on the experiences in our past. Emotions are personal and are different for every person and it would have to be different for every computer.

    Read More

More about Argument Essay: Can A Machine Have A Mind?

Open Document