actual study set c105
Strengths of the Turing Test
-Tractability: Modern science still unable to provide a definition of "intelligence." So even though imperfect, it's measurable and a pragmatic solution .-Breadth of subject matter: Talk about anything. Not just the words, but the topic of the conversation. -Demonstration of several skills: natural language, reason, knowledge, and ability to learn.
Replies to the Chinese Room Argument
1.Concede that person inside room doesn't understand Chinese, but running program would create something that understands Chinese (Systems Reply, Virtual Mind Reply, ~Other Minds Reply). 2.Concede claim that just running program as described does not create understanding, whether by human or computer. But a variation on the computer system could understand (Robot Reply, Brain Simulator Reply). 3.The person in the original Chinese Room scenario might understand Chinese, despite Searle's denials. If it is not reasonable to attribute understanding on the basis of the behavior exhibited by the Chinese Room, then it would not be reasonable to attribute understanding to humans on the basis of similar behavioral evidence (Other Minds Reply).
Formal Systems
A Formal System consists of:1)A (finite) set of symbols or elements (i.e., alphabet) that can be combined to form2)A set of formulae3)A set of rules for manipulating the formulae
Know what a Turing machine is, how it is implemented (read head, infinite tape, etc.) and how it works. You should also be able to describe why it is such a powerful and important device.
A Turing machine is a mathematical description of a very simple abstract device capable of arbitrary computations.
The Turing Test
A judge converses (via keyboard and monitor) with two "systems," one computer, one human. If the judge cannot tell which is which, then the computer is intelligent.This field is now generally known as natural language processing.
How is cognition typically defined?
A process underlying any form of intelligence or behavior in organisms
You should be able to explain what a behavior is and what an algorithm is, and give an example.
An algorithm is like a recipe -- a sequence of well-defined steps.
What fields of study does it encompass?
Artificial Intelligence Anthropology Computer Science Linguistics Neuroscience Philosophy Psychology
Weaknesses of the Turing Test
Assumption that human beings can judge a machine's intelligence by comparing its behavior with human behavior.-Naivety of interrogator-Human misidentification-Human intelligence versus intelligence in general. -Some human behavior is unintelligent (Artificial Stupidity? Measure the ability to imitate human typing errors; Common realizations in AI gaming).-Some intelligent behavior is inhuman (If it were to solve a problem that is too hard for most, then the interrogator would question the humanness).
Weaknesses of the Turing Test
Assumption that human beings can judge a machine's intelligence by comparing its behavior with human behavior.-Naivety of interrogator-Human misidentification-Human intelligence versus intelligence in general. -Some human behavior is unintelligent (Artificial Stupidity? Measure the ability to imitate human typing errors; Common realizations in AI gaming).-Some intelligent behavior is inhuman(If it were to solve a problem that is too hard for most, then the interrogator would question the humanness).
Behaviorism
Behaviorism arose as a reaction against dualism (and particularly against introspection). Claim: Talking about mental states is not talk about inner ghostly episodes; rather a shorthand way of talking about actual and potential patterns of observable behavior. E.g., Dispositional property of being soluble. If x were put in water, then x would dissolve. The main issue: It ignored the inner qualitative aspects of our mental states (e.g., having pain is not simply being inclined to moan, wince and take aspirin).
You should be able to describe the main three forms of organization by humans that are different from self-organization and to give and recognize examples of them:
Building by Blueprint, Following a Recipe, or following a well-informed leader.
What sorts of problems are cognitive scientists interested in?
Cognition is itself a broad term. Some used it exclusively to refer to thinking done by humans. Others see it more generally as the processes underlying any form of intelligence or behavior in living organisms. •The study of cognition typically involves the study of perception, problem-solving, learning, decision making, use of language, use of emotion.
Be able to explain Marr's Levels of Analysis and to compare and contrast two systems at any of the levels.
Computational level (what does the system do?), Algorithmic level (how does it do it?), and Implementation level (how is the system instantiated physically?).
Marr's Multiple Levels of Analysis
David Marr (1945 -1980) was a neuroscientists who studied the visual system. Marr described the brain as an information-processing system.Computational Level -What does the system do? Algorithmic Level -How does it do it? What is the representation and what is the process? Implementation Level-How is the system instantiated?What is the physical implementation?
What are the two main positions in the mind-body problem? Understand the differences between Dualism and Monism (a.k.a. Materialism). You should be able to describe these two major philosophical beliefs and also recognize examples of them.
Dualism (structural/substance, popular, property) - physical brain and mind are separate entities. Monism (identity, functional) - the mind is what the body does" - Thandar
What are typical arguments in favor of each of the main positions and what are some of the typical arguments against them?
Dualism's main argument was religion and introspection, while against was lack of explanatory force and the obvious dependence of the mental state on the physical state/ parsimony/ explanatory resources already available o Religion - concept of the soul as being distinct from the body o Introspection - thoughts, sensations, desires as one's own o Parsimony - simple explanations are preferred. No need for separate mind argument o Explanatory resources - we are beginning to understand more about the brain with the rise of neuroscience" - Thandar
Monism
Dualist positions were most popular around the 17th century, but they have been largely abandoned by science and philosophy. Monism is the belief that there are not two separate entities, a physical brain/body and a non-physical mind. Instead, the mind is what the brain/body does -all conceptions of mind are a result of the purely physical workings of the brain and body Monists can be characterized into three factions: physicalists or materialists (only matter), idealists (only mind), and neutralists (either or none). In science and philosophy, the mind is taken to be grounded in the body.
Structural Dualism (also referred to as Substance Dualism)
Each mind is a distinct non-physical thing whose identity is independent of any physical body to which it may be temporarily attached. Descartes believed that there are two kinds of substance:Physical stuff -stuff that has length and width and breadth and mass (res extensa).Non-physical stuff -no mass or length, no physical characteristics at all. This stuff's essential feature was that it was thinking stuff (res cogitans). Your body's physical senses send information to your mind and create experiences.Your mind sends information to your body to create behaviors and actions.
Functionalism
Functionalism is probably the most widely held theory of mind among philosophers, cognitive scientists and neuroscientists. The challenge is to discover in detail the functional organizationthat makes us what we are. Importantly, other minds may have the same functionality. If a computer can process information from the environment, that info can activate other mental states and create behaviors, then the computer's mind is functionality equivalent.
Functionalism
Functionalism says that mental states are defined by: The outside environment Other mental states Behavior Many different mental states may all result in the same function (that is, there doesn't need to be a direct one-to-one mapping).E.g., Pain: bodily damage from the environment that causes distress and thoughts of relief, and creates behaviors including wincing, attempts at relief and loud profanities. Any mental state that fits that functional role is "pain."
Identity Theory
Identity theory states that mental states are nothing more and nothing less than physical states in the brain.Each and every mental state or mental process can be linked in a one-to-one relationship with a physical state or physical process in the brain.Familiar parallels elsewhere in our scientific history. E.g., We have learned that sound is just a train of compression waves traveling through the air, and that the qualitative properties of being high pitched, for example, is just the property of having a high oscillatory frequency.
Be able to describe and differentiate between the Monism beliefs of Identity Theory and Functionalism. Understand how Functionalism relates to artificial intelligence.
Identity theory: is the idea that every mental state or mental process can be linked in a one-to-one relationship with a physical state or a physical process in the brain. Functionalism: Functionalism is the philosophical belief about the mind and body that supports Artificial Intelligence best.
What is the mind-body problem in philosophy of mind?
If the mind and the body are entirely different kinds of things, then how do they communicate between them? Our perceptual experiences depend on stimuli, and generate our behavior, how can those things explain our conscious experience? And similarly, how does a desire, or belief, cause individual neurons to fire and muscles to contract?
What are the questions that philosophy of mind is interested in?
Is the mind separate from the brain, or a by-product of it? Is artificial intelligence possible? Is there such a thing as a permanent self or soul? What is consciousness? Is cognition just computation?
Critiques of the Turing Test
John Searle's 1980 paper Minds, Brains, and Programsproposed the "Chinese room" thought experiment and argued that the Turing test could not be used to determine if a machine can think.Without knowing any Chinese, Searle can reply to written Chinese questions as long as he has rule books that guide him through what to draw on the papers in response to the symbols he receives.
What is an algorithm?
Like a recipe -a sequence of well-defined steps. As with cooking, there are a fixed set of primitive instructions. A good cook, even with a small set of primitives, can create an unboundednumber of great dishes.
Functionalism
Many different mental states may all results in the same function = what matters is the function that is served.
Descartes (1596 -1650)
Mechanical philosophy. Viewed the body as an intricate, complex machine, and tried to explain many behaviors without invoking a need for the soul. Everything about humans could be explained mechanistically, except one thing: Thought.
What distinguishes language from mere communication? What are the properties of language? You should be able to enumerate and explain these properties. Also, you should be able to give examples of the use of language in animals in relation to these properties.
Mode of communication Semantics Pragmatic function Interchangeability Cultural transmission Arbitrariness Discreteness Displacement Productivity
Properties of Language animals
Mode of communication: means by which the messages are transmitted (e.g., vocal-auditory, gestural signals, tactile, chemical).Semantics: that the signals have meaning.Pragmatic function: that they serve a useful purpose. Interchangeability: ability of individuals to both send and receive messages (e.g., turn-taking).Cultural transmission: some aspect to be learned through interaction with other users.Arbitrariness: having signals for which the form of the signals is not logically related to its meaning (e.g., cat, gato, koshka). Discreteness: having complex messages that are built up out of smaller parts.Displacement: ability to communicate about things not present in space or time.Productivity: ability to produce and understand any number of messages that have never been expressed.
How do we decide which theories are good? You should be able to enumerate multiple different ideas and explain them.
Most reasonable Amount of evidence in support Greatest explanatory power Predictive power Coherence Simplicity
Main arguments against Dualism
Parsimony-scientifically, simple explanations are preferred (Ockham's razor). If there is no proven need for a separate mind, then it should not be postulated.Explanatory resources already availableto the neurosciences -we are beginning to understand the brain's structural, chemical, and electrical properties, and how it process sensory information and modulates motor control. Direct links between changes to the brain (trauma, stimulation, chemicals) and changes to the mind.
Self-organization
Pattern at the global level of a system emergessolely from numerous interactions among the lower-level componentsof the system, without a central planner.
What are the behavioral capacities that are typically studied for animal cognition? Be able to mention at least 7. Be able to give an example of each.
Perception AttentionSpatial CognitionTime PerceptionConcepts and Categories: CountingLearning and MemoryTool Use, Reasoning and Problem SolvingLanguage / CommunicationSelf-awareness / Consciousness
Know who the following individuals were, what they believe(d) about the mind, brain, consciousness, and/or computers:
Plato Believed that all knowledge was innate. Aristotle Believed that all knowledge was learned. Descartes Philosopher who believed that the mind and the body were separate entities. He was the first to articulate the Dualist position. Wilhelm Wundt (specifically his structuralism beliefs of consciousness). Be aware of the downfall of Wundt's structuralist approach to consciousness. Started first psychology lab in Germany. His method was called structuralism, which relied on introspection. William James (specifically his functionalism beliefs of consciousness). Started the first psychology lab in the US. His method was called functionalism, and like Wilhelm Wundt, his primary method of investigation of the mind and consciousness was Introspection. Structuralism and Functionalism were the two major schools of Psychology started by Williams Wundt and William James. Understand why behaviorism emerged and know who its most famous proponents were: Behaviorism arose as a reaction against dualism (and particularly against introspection). B.F. Skinner. B.F. Skinner He believed that you could increase good behaviors by reinforcing them. David Marr: was a neuroscientists who studied the visual system Alan Turing Thomas Hobbes One of the earliest proponents that cognition is computation. Liebniz Searle Minsky. You should be able to articulate the arguments that he has used to explain why people are convinced computers cannot think. The Churchlands. What are the Churchland's argument that machines can indeed think?
What are some capacities that are typically associated with the study of intelligence? You should be able to mention and explain at least 8 different ones.
React, non-instinctive reaction to stimuli Logic, mental computation and calculation Planning, predicting, foresight Capacity to remember Ability to learn (Learn to learn) Adapt to new environments Creativity Problem solving Self-awareness, sense of self, sentient Emotional knowledge Dexterity to interact socially, communication, language Sensorimotor intelligence, ability to do headstands, climb, juggle, do yoga Collective intelligence, take part in a game of soccer or basketball, work well in a team. To have own goals, purposefulness, intentionality To stay alive, self-maintain, reproduce, evolve
What are some of the ways that scientists have used to measure and compare the intelligence of animals using a single metric that fits all? Know what brain-to-body mass measurements are, who come out at the top, and what the encephalization quotient (EQ) is, and who comes out at the top there. What are the two main reasons that people believe some animals are at the top of the EQ?
Researchers have studied animal cognition in:-Mammals (primates, cetaceans, elephants, dogs, cats, horses, livestock, raccoons and rodents), -Birds (parrots, corvids and pigeons), -Reptiles (lizards and snakes), -Fish -Invertebrates (cephalopods, spiders, insects). Trends in EQ(1) Brain matter is extremely costly in terms of energy needed to sustain it.Animals which live on relatively nutrient poor diets (plants, insects) have relatively little energy to spare for a large brain, while animals living from energy-rich food (meat, fish, fruit) can grow larger brains. (2) Brain power needed to catch food. Carnivores generally need to find and kill their prey, which presumably requires more cognitive power than browsing or grazing.However, many of the animals demonstrating the highest EQ's are primarily herbivorous, includingapes,macaques, andelephants. The dietary factor, therefore, may be less significant than certain others, likegregariousness.
Know what are automata and how they relate to our efforts to understand cognition and to create artificial intelligence. Be able to give an example of one.
Self-operating machines started with Ancient Greeks. Examples: (a) Hydraulics and pneumatics devices by Hero of Alexandria; (b) Digesting Duck by Jacques de Vaucanson; (c) The Draughtsman Writer by Henry Maillardet.
Plato (~400 BC)
Soul imprisoned in the body. (Platonic) Ideal Forms. Believed that certain types of knowledge were innate-some things we are just born with.
Aristotle (~350 BC)
Soul is the form of the body. Believed that we were born as a blank slate (a tabula rasa) and that all of our knowledge was learned through experience.
Stigmergy
Stigmergyis a mechanism of indirect coordination, through the environment, between agents or actions. The principle is that the trace left in the environment by an action stimulates the performance of a next action, by the same or a different agent. Stigmergyis a form of self-organization. It can too produce complex, organized structures and seemingly intelligent, coordinated behaviors between extremely simple agents.
Weak and Strong Artificial Intelligence
Strong AI is the view that suitably programmed computers can understandnatural language and have other mental capabilities similar to the humans whose behavior they mimic. Weak AI is the much more modest claim that computers are merely useful in psychology, linguistics, and other areas, in part because they can simulate mental abilities. But weak AI makes no claim that computers actually understand or are intelligent. The Chinese Room is meant as an argument against Strong Artificial Intelligence.
Be able to describe and differentiate between Structural Dualism, Popular Dualism and Property Dualism.
Structural dualism:the mind interacts with the body through some kind of structure (animal spirits through the pineal gland) Popular dualism: is the belief that the mind is a spiritual substance that inhabits and interacts with the body. Property dualism: states that the mind is not some unique substance separate from the brain, but that the brain has very special properties, like intentionality and consciousness, that are not possessed by any other physical objects.
Enactive Approach or Enactivism:
Takes into consideration the organisms autonomy - the system's ability to actively generate and maintain itself. The idea is that autonomy gives rise to cognition.
The Turing Test
The Turing Test is a 100% behavioral test.According to the test, if the machine can perform the correct behaviors, then it is intelligent.But there is no concern for howit gets done. Can the machine think? Does it understandwhat it is doing?
clarification
The Turing test is a test for behavioral display ofintelligence. The Chinese room argument is an argument against the ability of a machine to understand meaning.It argues thateven if a machine pass the Turing test -that is, to display intelligence behaviorally, it isnot necessarily understandingaccording to the Chinese room argument.
The Chinese Room Argument
The argument is that regardless of the computer's behaviors, and regardless of how it is programmed, the computer is just manipulating meaninglesssymbols (symbols without semantics), so the machine is not thinking.In a piece of paper, can you think of a good argument against the Chinese Room argument. That is, a counter-argument for why Searle's Chinese Room argument should not lead us to conclude that a machine cannot thinkor understandeven when it is behavingintelligently.
Computationalism
The brain is a computer.
Embodied Dynamicism or Embodied and Dynamic Approach
The brain is not a vacuum. There's a body and an environment. Behavior is the result of the interaction of all three components. The biomechanical properties of the body are essential.Also the time and timing of the actions make the difference in the success of behavior. Critical stance towards computationalism in either its cognitivist form or connectionist form.
empirical method
The empirical method entails observing the real world measuring and manipulating it. This includes most of the work in neuroscience and psychology.
What is the mirror test a test for? What are some of the drawbacks and criticisms of it?
The mirror test is typically used to assess whether animals are capable of self-awareness.
Conclusions from the Argument
The narrow conclusion of the argument is that programming a computer may make it appear to understand language but does not produce real understanding. Hence the "Turing Test" is inadequate. Regardless of the computer's behaviors, and regardless of how it is programmed, the computer is just manipulating meaninglesssymbols, so the machine is not thinking. Computers merely use syntactic rules to manipulate symbol strings, but have no understanding of meaning or semantics. The broader conclusion is a refutation of the computational theory of mind.
Dualism
The nature of consciousness resides in something that is not physical(beyond the scope of science). Our physical brain and conscious mind are separate entities. Although dualism is not the predominant view in the philosophical and scientific communities, it is arguably the most commontheory of mind in the general public.The dualistic approach to mind encompasses several different theories. Religious beliefs -Most major religious have some concept of the soul and an entity that is distinct from, and can exist apart from, a physical body. So disbelieving dualism can be problematic for many. Introspection -When I focus on my own thought process, I don't perceive neurons firing or chemicals flowing; rather, I apprehend a flux of thoughts, sensations, desires, and emotions -so there must be something more.
Self-Organization in Humans
The self-organizing behavior of so many animals suggests that similar processes should be expected in humans. Tell-tale signs of self-organization can be seen in statistical properties shared with other self-organizing systems (Zipf'slaw, Power law, Pareto principle, Small-world, etc).Examples such as critical mass, herd behavior, groupthink, the market economy, wikipedia. Even in cases when there are some recipes, some blueprints, some leaders, a lot of organizing work can be happening through the one-to-one interactions and the interactions through the environment.
synthetic method
The synthetic method models simulation and observe possibly from a AI to build a better understanding. This includes most of the work in computer science, robotics, and artificial intelligence.
What is the goal of Cognitive Scientists?
To make explicit the principles and mechanisms of cognition-- (provide a mechanistic explanation of cognition).
How far back does it go? Who were some of the first to show scientific interest in understanding the mind?
Traced all the way back to Pluto and Aristotle
Strengths of the Turing Test
Tractability: Modern science still unable to provide a definition of "intelligence." So even though imperfect, it's measurableand a pragmaticsolution.-Breadth of subject matter: Talk about anything. Not just the words, but the topic of the conversation. -Demonstration of several skills: natural language, reason, knowledge, and ability to learn.
Alan Turing
Turing also thought about machine intelligence: -"Can machines think?"He thought so, but a central question was: "If a computer could think, how could we tell?"He also realized (as you have) that defining "thinking" is quite difficult. So he proposed an alternate solution:
Turing Machines
Turing showed that anyfunction that can be computed by a human following fixed rules could also be computed by a Turing Machine....and Turing believed that "the discrete-state-machine model is the relevant description of one aspect of the material world -namely the operation of brains."Crucially, the description of a Turing Machine did not require it to have any specific physical instantiation -it could be made of of mechanical parts, electronically, chemically, etc. •Read the input symbolfrom the active cell. •Look up the transition rule associated with the current state and input symbol. •Overwrite the input symbol with the new symbol. •Change the current state according to the transition rule. •Shift the tape head one cell to the left or right, according to the new state's designation.
Thorndike and Pavlov
Unsatisfied with the anecdotal method of Darwin, E. L. Thorndike(American psychologist) and Ivan Pavlov, (Russian physiologist, Nobel laureate 1904) brought animal behavior into the laboratory for objective scrutiny. Careful observations of the escape of cats, dogs, and chicks from puzzle boxes. What appears to the naive human observer to be intelligent behavior may be strictly attributable to simple associations. The inference of animal reason, insight, or consciousness is unnecessary and misleading. The work of Thorndike and Pavlov set the research direction for animal behavior for more than half a century. Many experiments on conditioning, but little or no reference to mental processes.
Arguments for/against Identity Theory
What reasons does the identity theorist have for believing that neuroscience will eventually achieve an understanding of mental states? Physical origins of all living organismsEvolutionary historyNeural dependence of known behaviorsIdentify theory claims more than just physical explanation, also a one-to-one correspondence. Challenge of "multiple realizability." Brain-centric.
What is Cognitive Science?
is the interdisciplinary study of the mind, brain, cognition and intelligence.
Identity theory
mental states are nothing more and nothing less than physical states in the brain and there is a one-to-one relationship between physical states and mental states.
Connectionism
the mind is a neural network
Conwy Morgan
was a Britishethologist. Experimental approach to animal psychology, now known asMorgan's canon, a specialized form ofOccam's razorwhich played a role inbehaviorism, insisting that higher mental faculties should only be considered as explanations if lower faculties could not explain a behavior.
Know what the Computational Theory of Mind is.
•The view that intelligent behavior is causally explained by computations performed by the agent's cognitive system (or brain). •Computationalism says that cognition is computation; mind is a computer.•Computationalism has been mainstream in philosophy of mind as well as psychology and neuroscience -for several decades.
