*note* Isn’t it amusing how motivated we are just by having this as “extra credit”?
It has been difficult for me to decide whether machines can think. I have been inclined to favor the possibility of the “thinking machine” as far back as I can remember, but the material for this course has weighed heavily against that belief. Searle’s argument against “strong AI” is nearly irrefutable. He states that computers cannot think because at the core of their “thought” processes, all that is going on is the rearrangement of symbols (which is true). He argues that because of this, no information they receive has meaning. Our minds, in contrast, immediately creates meaning in all the information and stimuli we absorb from our environment. But, that leaves me wondering: What is separates the switching of 1′s and 0′s from the firing of neurons and dendrites in the brain? How does biology justify thought? The difference is that we know how computers work, but we do not know fully how the human mind works. We do know through introspection that we do think, and furthermore, that we are conscious. I believe that it is in fact our lack of understanding which grants our intellectual superiority to machines. I do not know how a machine could possibly develop self-awareness, as that is something completely intangible and possibly even beyond our understanding. I tried to find a hopeful solution in Clark’s essay, but the reading only convinced me of how a computer could mimic the signs of consciousness, when in reality a totally different process is occurring than what we would consider “thought”. Computers can be near-perfect in their illusions, but will not be able to truly think until we fully understand how the mind works. If we do fully master the mind, it will be whether the human mind is in fact a complex rearrangement of symbols or something completely different that will answer the question of strong AI.
