PHIL 102 Philosophy Through Science Fiction (CU S-2019)

automaton

self-operating machines designed to follow a predetermined sequence of operations, built to give the illusion of operating of its own volition. often shaped as humans or animals, and considered a predecessor to modern robots

Socratic method

Socrates' method of finding Truth by making and breaking down statements; 1. find a statement that's commonly accepted 2. try to find exceptions to the statement 3. revise the statement to account for exceptions 4. return to Step 2 with the improved statement until you end up with Truth

Descartes' 3 Hyperbolic Arguments

1) Unreliability of the Senses: illusions often fool our senses, so how can we be 100% certain of anything our senses tell us? 2) Dreaming: how can we be sure that we are not living through an elaborate dream? 3) Evil Genius/Demon: how can one be sure that their entire reality is not the machinations of a devious genius/devil/god that is entirely dedicated to altering one's perceptions of reality? (i.e. Truman Show, The Matrix)

Gary Marcus

American cognitive scientist who proposed a revision to the classic Turing Test by having an AI watch a miscellaneous video and then answer questions about it to see if it understood its content

Aristotle's definition of friendship

Aristotle defined three forms of friendship: 1. Friendships of pleasure, which are one-sided and make one party feel good about themselves. 2. Friendships of utility, which are also one-sided and further one party's interests or goals. 3. Friendships of virtue (philia), which are mutual and based on a mutual sharing of virtues and interests in which both parties are actively seeking virtuous lives & pursuing the Golden Mean. The only true form of long-lasting friendship, containing the benefits of the lesser two forms and more

David Chalmers

Australian epiphenomenalist philosopher and proponent of the existence of qualia, the inner, indescribable experiences unique to each person; as he describes, "to have qualia is almost the same thing as to be conscious"

Frank Jackson

Australian epiphenomenalist philosopher who penned the "Mary and the Black & White Room" thought experiment, which proposed that a woman who rigorously studied the color but lived in an entirely black and white space would not truly understand color until she could experience seeing it for herself; the "qualia" of experiencing color cannot be known solely through physical facts. Mental events are caused by, but distinct from, physical events, and thus our consciousness is immaterial

Alan Turing

British father of computer science, constructed computers which decrypted Nazi codes in WWII. Proposed the Turing Test as a means to prove that gender does not have any effect on intelligence; this test now makes up the foundation for testing for intelligence and consciousness in artificial intelligence systems

John Locke

English empiricist philosopher who argued against most of Descartes' notions of foundationalism and innate ideas; argued that wanting 100% certainty for information to be true "knowledge" was ridiculous, people can trust their senses without being entirely right. Innate ideas are simply the combination of two or more simple idea (i.e. "infinity" could be a combination of "finite" and "opposite"). Proposed that people are born "tabula rasa" (blank slate), and our minds are strictly material things using the body to sense the world. Believed Descartes' combination of religious theory and epistemology was irrelevant- keep the conversation about souls and God to the theologians

Jean Baudrillard

French postmodern philosopher, who wrote on the concepts of simulacra and hyperreality and their presence in our modern world despite their intrinsically artificial and self-sustaining natures

Rene Descartes

French substance dualist philosopher, strong proponent of rationalism and foundationalism. During the Scientific Revolution, argued that the only thing a person can know for certain is "cogito ergo sum" (I think therfore I am). Proposed that the mind was our soul, and concepts we could not experience in life (infinity, omnipotence, perfection, etc.) we innate ideas placed into our souls by God, the only being to have such unearthly qualities. Therefore, God is perfect, and therefore we can trust our senses. Believed our souls, which hold our capacity for reason, was the strict determining factor as to whether something was truly human or a fleshy automaton

Arthur Schopenhauer

German incel and pessimistic philosopher who wrote on the notion of "biological determinism": we have subconscious drives which govern our actions at the biological level. The most notable of these was the "Will to Life," the drive to procreate and have healthy offspring, which creates the illusion of love- fooling us into creating the next generation of the species

Allegory of the Cave

Plato's allegory for his notion of dualism; reality has both a physical and non-physical nature ("eidos," forms). True knowledge is knowledge of the forms, and the physical objects we analyze with our senses distract us with the ever-changing world from the eternal, pure forms. The physical world is the cave prison, the shadows on the wall the physical existence we perceive, and the outside is the world of forms

Plato

ancient Greek philosopher and student of Socrates. Asserted that reality was of dual natures in his "Theory of the Forms," with an illusory, ever-changing physical reality and the eternal, unchanging ethereal reality of the forms ("eidos"), illustrating this with the Allegory of the Cave. We have innate knowledge of such forms, but are distracted by the illusions of the "real world." His metaphysics served as the basis for Descartes

robot

a machine, programmable by a computer, designed to execute tasks autonomously and/or automatically, capable of sensing its surroundings, thinking about what to do, and then acting based on its conclusions. A robot can be made out of any material, come at different levels of autonomy, and do not need AI to qualify as robots. First used in the Czech play "Rossum's Universal Robots" by Karel Capek, derived from the Czech word "robota" (forced labor), from the root "rab" (slave)

android

a robot resembling a human being. comes from the Greek roots "andros" (man) and "eidos" (form)

Turing+ Test (revised Turing Test)

addendum to the Turing Test suggested by Gary Marcus: if an AI could watch a miscellaneous video it is not familiar with and answer questions about its content, then it demonstrates intelligence & reason (i.e. know when to laugh in a funny video) because it understood the video

utilitarianism

aka consequentialist ethics; ethics based on the end result, in which the goodness of a decision is based upon if it provides the most good for the biggest number of people (ends justify means). Utilitarian Jeremy Bentham penned the Principle of Utility, which notions that the "good" action is the one which increases the most pleasure and decreases the most pain for the greatest amounts of people

deontology

aka non-consequentialist ethics; ethics based upon the goodness of the action itself, rather than the result. Deontologist Immanuel Kant penned the Categorical Imperative, which states: 1. act as if what you do would be a universal law for all people 2. treat humanity as an end-in-itself, never as a means-to-an-end

Aristotle

ancient Greek philosopher and student of Plato. Disagreed with his mentor's metaphysics, instead embracing empiricism and materialism rather than Plato's dualist notion. Notable for views on friendship, categorizing them into friendships of utility, pleasure, and virtue (aka true friendship, or "philia")

Sophia

android designed by Hanson Robotics, capable of displaying 50+ facial expressions and loaded with a weak AI chatbot, allowing her to actively converse with humans. Although unable to pass any Turing Test or other tests of consciousness/intelligence, it was granted citizenship in Saudi Arabia in 2017

AlphaGo

artificial intelligence created by DeepMind, which beat the world champion Go players; Go is a game played on a 19x19 grid, upon which there are a near-infinite number of moves. Later used to create AlphaGo Zero, a successor which was trained by playing against AlphaGo and eventually beat it

DeepBlue

artificial intelligence created by IBM, which in 1997 beat world chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov in chess

Watson

artificial intelligence designed by IBM as a machine learning & corporate assistance AI, which beat two champion Jeopardy players

Eliza

artificial intelligence designed by Joseph Weizenbaum, and the first chatbot to pass the Turing Test. However, its true success is usually doubted, as it primarily replied by asking open ended questions based on the examiner's last reply, much like a therapist, rather than displaying true cognition

strong AI

artificial intelligence powerful enough to achieve consciousness. Currently, none such AI exist. Those who fall in the substance dualism school of epistemology argue that such an AI can never exist, whereas those who subscribe to an empiricist perspective believe it is only a matter of time and technological progress

weak AI

artificial intelligence that is not powerful enough to attain consciousness; though they can be very clever, none have passed the tests necessary to prove consciousness (i.e. AlphaGo, DeepBlue, Siri)

Google X's neural network

artificial neural network developed by Google X, capable of identifying shapes, objects, animals, and faces; used to identify cat videos online

Vaucanson's Digesting Duck

automaton designed by French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson in the shape of a duck, which consumed pellet-shaped "food" and "pooped out" other pellets

DARPA Robotics Challenge

competition funded by the US Department of Defense from 2012 to 2015 to construct robots with "task-level autonomy" capable of being dispatched in disaster situations dangerous for humans, inspired by the Fukujima Nuclear Disaster. Teams from across the world were tasked with designing robots capable of walking over difficult terrain, using tools, lifting objects, etc. While few robots succeeded at their tasks, robotics has advanced leaps and bounds since the competition's conclusion

innate ideas

concept proposed by Plato & Descartes of ideas which exist innately in our minds. For Plato, these are the immaterial forms ("eidos") which exist in perpetual perfection, while the material, imperfect versions of these things delude us from the truth of the forms. For Descartes, the knowledge of certain abstract ideas humans are incapable of experiencing (i.e. omnipotence, infinity, omniscience, perfection) are ingrained within our minds by God, the only being capable of existing with such unfathomable qualities.Locke was against this notion, claiming innate ideas were just combinations of simpler ideas

Doctrine of Double Effect

deontological principle introduced by St. Thomas Aquinas that performing a good action may be permissible even if it has bad effects (so long as the bad effects are unintentional), but performing a bad action for the purpose of achieving good effects is never permissible

materialism

epistemological belief that the mind is simply the sum-total functions of the human brain, rather than a non-physical entity (Locke)

epiphenomenalism

epistemological middle-ground between substance dualism and materialism; our consciousness is not intelligence, it is our collective qualia. Our brains do the thinking, but there is something within our qualia which goes beyond empirical logic (Chalmers)

substance dualism

epistemological notion that the mind and body are of two different substances (physical body vs. immaterial mind) (Descartes)

foundationalism

epistemological view that knowledge requires absolute certainty to be true knowledge (Descartes)

rationalism

epistemological view that our reason justifies our knowledge (Descartes)

empiricism

epistemological view that our senses & perceptions are the source of our knowledge

Uncanny Valley

first defined by android designer Masahiro Mori, a term for the drastic drop in visual appeal which occurs as a face gets close to exactly human, but not quite human, causing discomfort and disgust. Many believe such faces remind us of corpses, which naturally put humans on edge

Kathleen Richardson

founder of the Campaign Against Sex Robots and ardent opposition of the creation of androids for sexual purposes. Argument put simply is: 1) prostitution dehumanizes and objectifies women, furthering societal gender inequality, etc. 2) therefore, prostitution is bad 3) in David Levy & many others' explanations, sex robots would function similarly to prostitution 4) therefore, sex robots are bad Additionally, agrees with John Danahers' notion of corrosion, in that having romantic & sexual relationships of pleasure with robots will reduce our capacity to make deeper relationships of virtue with other people

Vaucanson's Flute Player

humanoid automaton designed by French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson capable of playing the flute, built in with artificial lungs and jointed fingers to play different combinations of notes

Droz's The Writer

humanoid automaton designed by Swiss watchmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz, capable of writing and drawing various illustrations and an infinite combination of letters "programmed" by the input module in the back of the machine, allowing a user to switch around, add and/or remove letters as desired

zombie

in epiphenomenalism, a being with intelligence but without qualia, interpreting all experiences as raw data rather than the thoughts, feelings, and senses which form qualia

qualia

inner, indescribable, subjective experiences we all have. While we can assume people's thoughts and feelings, we can never truly know their entire qualia in any given moment based on external circumstances- that is entirely to themselves (Chalmers)

knowledge (according to Plato)

justified true belief; in order for it to be true knowledge, it must be observed to be true and backed up by supporting evidence

Daniel Dennett

notably anti-epiphenomenalist American materialist philosopher, who argued against Frank Jackson's "Mary & the Black & White Room" thought experiment, arguing instead that there is nothing about "experiencing" color that is separate from physical data; what epiphenomenalists view as "qualia" is simply the processing of all our senses, not something distinct apart from these processes. Consciousness is, therefore, an illusion, a byproduct of mental processes

General Problem Solver Test

one of Descartes' "Very Certain Tests" to distinguish between man and machine; states that, since a human being is defined by their ability reason, a true human is capable of using reason to solve a virtually infinite number of problems

Language User Test

one of Descartes' "Very Certain Tests" to distinguish between man and machine; states that, since a human being is defined by their ability reason, a true human is capable of using reason to string together abstract thoughts into clear language

John Searle

philosopher & critic of the Turing Test, penned the "Chinese Room Argument" thought experiment to explain how a weak AI may be able to pass the Turing Test without truly understanding the words it is reading and replying with

David Levy

proponent of sex robots, arguing that androids for romantic and sexual stimulation would fill a void for people without love & affection, and could be used as "practice" to prepare people for proper human relationships

Atlas

robot designed by Boston Dynamics and used during the DARPA Robotics Challenge. Notable for going viral online due to it's multitude of improvements of the years, capable of surprising dexterity (can walk over uneven ground, frontflip, do parkour, etc.)

just war theory

set of ethical principles which dictate when it is ethical to wage war & what is ethically appropriate when in war. Separated into rules of "jus ad bellum" (when it is okay to go to war) and "jus in bello" (what is okay during war). Most principles are derived from the writings of St. Augustine of Hippo & St. Thomas Aquinas

Turing Test

test devised by Alan Turing used in artificial intelligence to test if a robot is able to demonstrate human intelligence and reason. Test has an examiner chat over text with several people and one or more AI; if the examiner cannot determine which correspondents are AI, then the AI has demonstrated human-like intelligence. As John Searle and many others have pointed out, this approach is by no means flawless

Lovelace Test

test for machine intelligence penned by mathematician Ada Lovelace, stating a machine is intelligent if it comes up with an idea or process it was not designed to do, which cannot be explained by a hardware fluke or a setup by the original programmers/designers

Elf Ranger Test

test proposed by Dr. Beth Singler to have AI test for consciousness & intelligence by playing D&D, as the TTRPG requires social collaboration, creative problem solving, & role-playing- all things a weak AI would not be capable of

ethics

the philosophical study of issues of morality and value judgement

epistemology

the philosophical study of knowledge

metaphysics

the philosophical study of the essence or nature of reality

determinism

the philosophy that holds that certain events, actions, and decisions result from something independent of the human will (quantum physics, an omnipotent creator, fate, etc.); categorized as soft determinism, which states some events are determined by external causes, and hard determinism, which states ALL events are out of human control

fallibilism

the principle that propositions concerning empirical knowledge can be accepted even though they cannot be proved with certainty (Locke)

hyperreality

the process and existence of a cultural or social phenomenon or thought which, although irrational, becomes a reality in itself, a simulacrum defined by its own nature. The process by which a reality becomes a hyperreality occurs in four steps: 1. image is a reflection of our reality (i.e. pumpkin spice reflects the fall season) 2. image is a pervesion/distortion of our reality (i.e. pumpkin spice emulates the foods we traditionally eat around fall) 3. the image masks a lack of reality (one can have pumpkin spice any time of year; its always available, not just seasonally) 4. the image exists without relation to reality and rationality (pumpkin spice has no reason to exist, but it does)

Mary in the Black and White Room

thought experiment created by David Chalmers describing a color scientist who has studied colors for all her life but has never seen any colors beyond black and white: in such a circumstance, does Mary truly know the color "blue" without having witnessed anything blue? To Chalmers, no, because she lacks the qualia of having truly witnessed blue. To materialists, like Daniel Dennett, there is no difference; studying the data of "blue" is no different than experiencing blue in real life

Chinese Room Argument

thought experiment explaining the flaws of the Turing Test created by John Searle; instead of understanding what exactly it is saying, an AI going through a Turing Test may be following preset instructions, interpreting data and responding appropriately without comprehending what its replying with. To the outside observer, it would appear the AI is intelligent, when in reality they are simply replying with an "if A, say B"

postmodernism

while difficult to describe, broadly defined as a set of critical, strategic, and rhetorical practices meant to destabilize other concepts, often using concepts such as difference, repetition, simulacra, & hyperreality