Study Sheet for Quiz 1

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Study Material:

Class presentations

"Computing Machinery and Intelligence" by Alan Turing

"Minds, Brains, and Programs" by John Searle

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Study Questions:

Introduction (presentation on Cognitive Science)

What is cognitive science? How is cognitive science related to such fields as psychology, philosophy, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience? How is cognitive science different from psychology? What are some of the challenges of cognitive science as a science? What is an argument for not restricting cognitive science to human cognition?

The Mind-Body Problem (presentation on Mind-Body Problem)

Why is it hard to study the mind (and hence why is cognitive science such a young field)? What is the Problem of Other Minds? How do we currently judge whether someone or something has a mind, and what is the danger/disadvantage in doing so? What is Descartes' argument for the mind being non-physical? What is idealism? What is dualism? What is materialism? What is the Neural Dependency argument for materialism? What is the Scientific Reductionism argument for materialism? What is epiphenomenalism? What is non-interactionist dualism?

The Puzzle of Consciousness (presentation on Consciousness)

What is the problem of consciousness? In particular, what are the Inverted Spectrum and Zombie thought experiments, and how can they be used as arguments against functionalism? If we don't know what other people are actually observing, how can we say that things are 'publicly observable'?

From Behaviorism to Functionalism (presentation on Functionalism)

What is the Biological History argument for materialism? What are some interesting parallels between biologists trying to define and study 'life', and cognitive scientists trying to define and study 'mind'? What is introspectionism, and what was its drawback? What is psychological behaviorism? Why did behaviorism become such a dominant force in psychology? What is philosophical behaviorism? What is mind-brain identity theory? What is (philosophical) functionalism? How can functionalism be seen as a compromise between behaviorism and mind-brain identity theory? What is computationalism? How is computationalism a kind of functionalism?

Computationalism (presentation on Computationalism)

What is an algorithm, and what makes it 'effective'? What are computations? What is a computer? What is computationalism? What is the 'conceptual' argument for computationalism? In which three ways does the brain 'fit' the thesis of computationalism (i.e. what is the 'empirical' argument for computationalism?) What is the simulation objection to computationalism, and how can computationalism respond to that?

The Turing Test ("Computing Machinery and Intelligence" by Alan Turing; presentation on Turing Test)

What is the Behavioral Repertoire Argument for machine intelligence? What are the two kinds of objections to this argument? What is the Turing Test and how does it relate to the Behavioral Repertoire argument? What is the importance of shielding the interrogator from the interrogated in the Turing Test? What is the importance of having both a human and a machine respond to an interrogator in the Turing Test? Did Turing himself believe that the Turing Test provides a definition of intelligence? Why or why not? How does Turing respond to the objection that machines can only do what they're told (programmed) to do, and hence can't learn, create, adapt, or do anything novel? How does the question of artificial intelligence relate to the question of artificial flight?

The Chinese Room ("Minds, Brains, and Programs" by John Searle; presentation on Chinese Room)

What is the Chinese Room Argument? What is the connection between the Chinese Room scenario and the Turing Test? What is the connection between the Chinese Room argument and something like a calculator? What is the difference between a syntactic computation and a semantic computation? Why can a Look-Up Table set-up not work? What are the several important functions of the paper in the Chinese Room? What is the Robot Reply to the Chinese Room argument? What is the Brain Reply? What is the Systems Reply? What, according to the Systems Reply, would be the correct way to look at the Chinese Room when interpreted as an implementation of a computation? In particular, how do Searle and the System Reply look differently at the role of the person in the room? What is the homuncular Fallacy, and how does it relate to the Chinese Room? How does Searle respond to those objections? What is Searle's position on the Mind-Body problem?

Situated Cognition (presentation on Situated Cognition)

What is the traditional view on the connection between perception, action, and cognition, especially in relationship to the brain? How does situated cognition challenge this traditional view? What are some examples that support this idea? What are 'epistemic actions'? What is the idea of the 'extended mind'? What is the idea of 'multiple minds'? How can the idea of situated cognition be used to answer Searle's reply to the System Reply to his Chinese Room argument? How can the idea of situated cognition be used to resolve Wallace's paradox?