Author: Matthew T. Dickerson
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 149820385X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 229
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Book Description
Are humans just complex biochemical machines, mere physical parts of a causally closed materialist universe? Are we approaching the so-called "Singularity" when human consciousness can (and will) be downloaded into computers? Or is there more to the human person--something that might be known as soul or spirit? As this book makes clear, the answers to these questions have profound implications to topics such as heroism, creativity, ecology, and the possibility of reason and science. In exploring this important topic, Dickerson engages the ideas of some well-known twentieth- and twenty-first-century espousers of physicalism, including philosopher Daniel Dennett (Consciousness Explained), biologist Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), futurist-engineer Raymond Kurzweil (The Age of Spiritual Machines), psychologist B. F. Skinner (Beyond Freedom and Dignity), and mathematician-philosopher Bertrand Russell (Why I Am Not a Christian). Through a careful reading of their works, Dickerson not only provides a five-fold critique of physicalism, but also offers a Christian alternative in the form of "integrative dualism," which affirms the existence of both a physical and spiritual reality without diminishing the goodness or importance of either, and acknowledges that humans are spiritual as well as bodily persons.
Author: J. Walmsley
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137283424
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
Walmsley offers a succinct introduction to major philosophical issues in artificial intelligence for advanced students of philosophy of mind, cognitive science and psychology. Whilst covering essential topics, it also provides the student with the chance to engage with cutting edge debates.
Author: Hubert Dreyfus
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743205510
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
Human intuition and perception are basic and essential phenomena of consciousness. As such, they will never be replicated by computers. This is the challenging notion of Hubert Dreyfus, Ph. D., archcritic of the artificial intelligence establishment. It's important to emphasize that he doesn't believe that AI is fundamentally impossible, only that the current research program is fatally flawed. Instead, he argues that to get a device (or devices) with human-like intelligence would require them to have a human-like being in the world, which would require them to have bodies more or less like ours, and social acculturation (i.e. a society) more or less like ours. This helps to explain the practical problems in implementing artificial intelligence algorithms.
Author: Eliezer J. Sternberg
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493081829
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 177
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Book Description
Right now, someone in an artificial intelligence lab is fusing silicon circuitry in an attempt to engineer the human mind. In a hospital, a neurosurgeon is attempting to influence a patient's emotions by firing electrical impulses into his brain. In a classroom, a teacher is explaining how neurons in the brain interact to generate thoughts, feelings, and decisions. The question of where consciousness comes from and how it works is likely the greatest mystery we face. Despite progress in our knowledge of the brain, we still don't know how it allows us to do things like enjoy a sunset, solve a math problem, or use our imagination. For those of us who have ever thought about issues of the mind or free will, these developments pose provocative questions. What would happen if those mysterious processes could be understood? Would a scientist be able to know everything about our minds just from studying the systems in our brains? Could he predict how we will think and act? After all, the brain is an organ just like the heart or stomach, and scientists can figure out when the heart will beat and when the stomach will release bile. If such a thing could be accomplished, would that make me a machine? There are those who approach this question from a technological perspective. Someday, an engineer might be able to build a robot with my memories, opinions, and behavior. Would that make me a machine? This concise, lucid primer on neuroscience and philosophy of mind takes the reader to the very depths of the mystery of consciousness, exploring it through the eyes of key philosophers, neuroscientists, and technologists. Avoiding jargon and oversimplification, author Eliezer J. Sternberg illuminates baffling questions of the brain, mind, and what it means to be human.
Author: K. Warwick
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 9780099703013
Category : Artificial intelligence
Languages : en
Pages : 307
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Book Description
Kevin Warwick has created robots with the brain power of a wasp, and may soon have built robots which are not only more intelligent than humans in some ways, but also superior in their practical skills. In this book he argues that humans may be at the mercy of these life forms, and be treated in the same way as humans treat animals today. He proposes that there is an urgent need for an anti-proliferation treaty to prevent these and other even more horrifying scenarios.
Author: Matthew Dickerson
Publisher: Brazos Press
ISBN: 1587432722
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
A computer scientist shows that humans are more than biochemical machines, highlighting a far richer vision of personhood, creativity, and love.
Author: Alan Garnham
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317276167
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 142
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Book Description
Cognitive science – which draws on ideas from psychology, philosophy, linguistics and artificial intelligence (AI) – attempts to explain our mental life within a scientific framework. Its goal is, thus, to remove the last major obstacle to a unified scientific account of the natural world. In this title, originally published in 1991, Alan Garnham provides an invaluable introduction to this exciting new development in the study of mind. The Mind in Action focuses on the development of a systematic explanation of cognition, rather than on facts about the way we perceive things, remember them, talk about them, think about them, and interact with them. The author looks in detail at the nature of scientific explanations, the reasons for developing them, and the way they are assessed. He describes the work carried out by cognitive scientists and considers the questions that motivate it. He introduces the computational metaphor for the mind, and explains how flushing out the metaphor might lead to an integrated scientific account of mental phenomena. Designed primarily for people about to embark on courses in cognitive science and related disciplines, The Mind in Action captures the liveliness and excitement of debates about the mind. It is readily accessible to anyone with an interest in how the mind works, avoiding technical terms where possible and explaining them fully where they are necessary.
Author: Peter A. Hancock
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351917455
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 203
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Book Description
Technology is our conduit of power. In our modern world, technology is the gatekeeper deciding who shall have and who shall have not. Either technology works for you or you work for technology. It shapes the human race just as much as we shape it. But where is this symbiosis going? Who provides the directions, the intentions, the goals of this human-machine partnership? Such decisions do not derive from the creators of technology who are enmeshed in their individual innovations. They neither come from our social leaders who possess only sufficient technical understanding to react to innovations, not to anticipate or direct their progress. Neither is there evidence of some omnipotent 'invisible hand,' the simple fact is that no one is directing this enterprise. In Mind, Machine and Morality, Peter Hancock asks questions about this insensate progress and has the temerity to suggest some cognate answers. He argues for the unbreakable symbiosis of purpose and process, and examines the dangerous possibilities that emerge when science and purpose meet. Historically, this work is a modern-day child of Bacon's hope for the 'Great Instauration.' However, unlike its forebear, the focus here is on human-machine systems. The emphasis centers on the conception that the active, extensive face of modern philosophy is technology. Whatever we are to become is bound up not only in our biology but critically in our technology also. And to achieve rational progress we need to articulate manifest purpose. This book is one step along the purposive road. Drawing together his many seminal writings on human-machine interaction and adapting these works specifically for this collection, Peter Hancock provides real food for thought, delighting readers with his unique philosophical perspective and outstanding insights. This is theoretical work of the highest order and will open minds accordingly.
Author: Alexander E. Silverman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 042972294X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
Mind, Machine, and Metaphor is a rich, original, and wide-ranging view of legal theory in the context of artificial intelligence (AI) research. It is essential reading for legal theorists and for legal scholars and students of AI with an interest in each other's fields.
Author: Suzanne Cunningham
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
ISBN: 9780872205185
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 290
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Book Description
Designed for a first course in the philosophy of mind, this book has several distinctive features. Unlike any other book of its kind, it offers extensive treatment of the emotions and of the problem of other minds. Throughout the text insights from other relevant disciplines--psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, anthropology, computer science--are integrated into a philosophical framework. A section is devoted to a concise discussion of the factors to consider when assessing any theory. An ongoing series of Notes on Terminology explains each of the technical terms used. Each chapter is followed by a list of Issues for Discussion, and Suggested Research Projects--short, focused assignments that introduce the reader to materials of interest outside the text.
