On the question whether machines can think, Descartes and Turing are in strong disagreement. Evaluate the arguments on either side. Does Searle's 'Chinese Room' argument help resolve the debate?
The ‘thinking machine’ debate raises numerous philosophical questions on the nature of thinking and how a machine could replicate the way our brains think. With advances in technology, the idea of building a machine that can replicate a brain is somewhat plausible, but this still may be a long way off. There are generally two different sides to the argument, those who believe we can build a thinking machine, and those who think its simply impossible for a machine to mimic the complex working of the human brain. Those who believe that its possible …show more content…
From his accounts in Discourse, it is clear that Descartes did not honestly believe that machines had the capability to think like humans do. He argued that machines could not think because they did not have minds, as only humans have minds and only humans can think. He affirmed that machines would never have the capabilities to allow for language, and whilst a machine may be able to put an abstract sentence together (imitating words due to a certain trigger or translating a language), it wouldn’t be difficult to tell that it’s a machine because of its propensity not to hold a normal conversation. Descartes explains in Discourse that there are two “very certain means” to tell that a machine is not thinking (or in his terms, is not a real man). First is that the machine could never use words to declare their thoughts as they are coming to them. Descartes explains: “they would never be able to use words or other signs to make words as we do to declare our thoughts to others”. They can put together words based on a certain trigger word that is said initially, but not in a natural and meaningful way. Secondly, he says that whilst they can do some tasks we can do, they cannot do other, more meaningful tasks. Descartes goes further, explaining: “We would discover that they act, not by knowledge, but only by the arrangement of their organs” (Descartes 1637). …show more content…
The Chinese Room is basically the idea that someone can be perceived to understand Chinese without actually knowing any Chinese at all, much like how the computer program ‘understands’ questions it is asked by a human. This is done by placing someone who has no knowledge of Chinese in a room, with countless volumes that teach them in English what to do and write when they see certain Chinese characters in a sequence. Someone then puts a piece of paper through a slot into the room that asks a question in Chinese. The characters are meaningless to them, but the books guide them on answering any kind of phrases in Chinese (the countless books act like a computer program). In order to find the answer to the phrase in Chinese, the person in the room simply has to find the same phrase in one of the volumes to tell them what symbol to write in response. To the outside world, there is no way of telling they don’t understand Chinese at all. The Chinese room argument demonstrates that when a computer program takes the Turing Test, it ‘understands’ the symbols in the same kind of way this person in the Chinese room would, (by looking at their syntactic – their shape and form). Therefore, a computer program that works in this way does not actually understand a language fully – even if
The ‘thinking machine’ debate raises numerous philosophical questions on the nature of thinking and how a machine could replicate the way our brains think. With advances in technology, the idea of building a machine that can replicate a brain is somewhat plausible, but this still may be a long way off. There are generally two different sides to the argument, those who believe we can build a thinking machine, and those who think its simply impossible for a machine to mimic the complex working of the human brain. Those who believe that its possible …show more content…
From his accounts in Discourse, it is clear that Descartes did not honestly believe that machines had the capability to think like humans do. He argued that machines could not think because they did not have minds, as only humans have minds and only humans can think. He affirmed that machines would never have the capabilities to allow for language, and whilst a machine may be able to put an abstract sentence together (imitating words due to a certain trigger or translating a language), it wouldn’t be difficult to tell that it’s a machine because of its propensity not to hold a normal conversation. Descartes explains in Discourse that there are two “very certain means” to tell that a machine is not thinking (or in his terms, is not a real man). First is that the machine could never use words to declare their thoughts as they are coming to them. Descartes explains: “they would never be able to use words or other signs to make words as we do to declare our thoughts to others”. They can put together words based on a certain trigger word that is said initially, but not in a natural and meaningful way. Secondly, he says that whilst they can do some tasks we can do, they cannot do other, more meaningful tasks. Descartes goes further, explaining: “We would discover that they act, not by knowledge, but only by the arrangement of their organs” (Descartes 1637). …show more content…
The Chinese Room is basically the idea that someone can be perceived to understand Chinese without actually knowing any Chinese at all, much like how the computer program ‘understands’ questions it is asked by a human. This is done by placing someone who has no knowledge of Chinese in a room, with countless volumes that teach them in English what to do and write when they see certain Chinese characters in a sequence. Someone then puts a piece of paper through a slot into the room that asks a question in Chinese. The characters are meaningless to them, but the books guide them on answering any kind of phrases in Chinese (the countless books act like a computer program). In order to find the answer to the phrase in Chinese, the person in the room simply has to find the same phrase in one of the volumes to tell them what symbol to write in response. To the outside world, there is no way of telling they don’t understand Chinese at all. The Chinese room argument demonstrates that when a computer program takes the Turing Test, it ‘understands’ the symbols in the same kind of way this person in the Chinese room would, (by looking at their syntactic – their shape and form). Therefore, a computer program that works in this way does not actually understand a language fully – even if