The Turing Test and the Zombie Argument

Kostic, Daniel (2004) The Turing Test and the Zombie Argument. UNSPECIFIED thesis, University of Belgrade.

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Abstract

In this paper I shall try to put some implications concerning the Turing's test and the so-called Zombie arguments into the context of philosophy of mind. My intention is not to compose a review of relevant concepts, but to discuss central problems, which originate from the Turing's test - as a paradigm of computational theory of mind - with the arguments, which refute sustainability of this thesis. In the first section (Section I), I expose the basic computationalist presuppositions; by examining the premises of the Turing Test (TT) I argue that the TT, as a functionalist paradigm concept, underlies the computational theory of mind. I treat computationalism as a thesis that defines the human cognitive system as a physical, symbolic and semantic system, in such a manner that the description of its physical states is isomorphic with the description of its symbolic conditions, so that this isomorphism is semantically interpretable. In the second section (Section II), I discuss the Zombie arguments, and the epistemological-modal problems connected with them, which refute sustainability of computationalism. The proponents of the Zombie arguments build their attack on the computationalism on the basis of thought experiments with creatures behaviorally, functionally and physically indistinguishable from human beings, though these creatures do not have phenomenal experiences. According to the consequences of these thought experiments - if zombies are possible, then, the computationalism doesn't offer a satisfying explanation of consciousness. I compare my thesis from Section 1, with recent versions of Zombie arguments, which claim that computationalism fails to explain qualitative phenomenal experience. I conclude that despite the weaknesses of computationalism, which are made obvious by zombie-arguments, these arguments are not the last word when it comes to explanatory force of computationalism.

Item Type:	Thesis (UNSPECIFIED)
Subjects:	Philosophie > Seminararbeiten, Diplom, Dissertationen, Arbeitspapiere > Analytische Philosophie
Depositing User:	Sissi Kemp
Date Deposited:	25 Jan 2005
Last Modified:	08 Sep 2011 18:51
URI:	http://sammelpunkt.philo.at/id/eprint/1007

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