The modern theory of functionalism proposes that mental states of humans should be identified by the function that those mental states sever rather than the material composition. To demonstrate functionalism, pain is often used as an example. Suppose that pain is a mental state associated with bodily injury. If functionalism were true, then a creature with a completely different physical constitution could be in pain assuming it possessed …show more content…
The two most commonly cited criticisms of the turing test are: The Chinese Room criticism and the Blockhead criticism.
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The Chinese Room argument closely relates to the Turing test. Published by John Searle in 1932, the thought experience describes a situation where
Searle is locked in a room and is then passed Chinese characters under the door. Searle does not understand any Chinese, but by manipulating symbols and numerals and matching them with the symbols and numerals he has in the room, Searle is capable of correctly responding to any query received from the outside. The conclusion that is meant to be constructed from this argumentisthattheTuringTestisinadequatetodeterminewhetherasystem is intelligent, because the machine (or Searle himself in the Chinese Room example) does not possess the knowledge of what those symbols actually mean. The Chinese room argument has gained an incredible amount of traction in the philisopher community, and as such it has faced numerous objections. “The Systems Reply” is perhaps one of the strongest of these objections. What that reply suggests is that while it is correct that the …show more content…
However, another thing that becomes apparent is that being able to pass it does not in any way imply intelligence.
Many arguments against functionalism do not distinguish functionalism from computationalism. While it is not wrong to assume that functionalism and computationalism are very closely related, there are some signifact dif- ferences between the two that are seldom mentioned when discussing either one of the disciplines. Functionalism describes the mind as a collection of mental states that are functionally equivalent to the system found in the
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human brain. Computationalism is a view that the functional organization of the brain (and all the systems that are its functional equivalents) is compu- tational. A computational system implies that the mind works in a similar way current sofware does, with explict step-by-step procedures for solving tasks.[ 8 ] This is the view that is often associated with the “mind as software” analogy.[ 9 ] A lot of the criticisms that are commonly used against function- alism are, in fact, better suited for critcizing the computational theory of mind. Functionalism may be a theory that has it flaws, but the Turing Test should stop being used as a