Key works |
Probably the most important attack on whether AI is possible is John Searle's famous Chinese Room Argument: Searle 1980. This attack focuses on the semantic aspects (mental semantics) of thoughts, thinking, and computing. For some replies to this argument, see the same 1980 journal issue as Searle's original paper. For the problem of the nature of rationality, see Pylyshyn 1987. An especially strong attack on AI from this angle is Jerry Fodor's work on the frame problem: Fodor 1987. On the frame problem in general, see McCarthy & Hayes 1969. For some replies to Fodor and advances on the frame problem, see Ford & Pylyshyn 1994. For the transcendent reasoning issue, a central and important paper is Hilary Putnam's Putnam 1960. This paper is arguably the source for the computational turn in 1960s-70s philosophy of mind. For architecture-of-mind issues, see, for starters: M. Spivey's The Contintuity of Mind, Oxford, which argues against the notion of discrete representations. See also, Gelder & Port 1995. For an argument for discrete representations, see, Dietrich & Markman 2003. For an argument that the mind's boundaries do not end at the body's boundaries, see, Clark & Chalmers 1998. For a statement of and argument for computationalism -- the thesis that the mind is a kind of computer -- see Shimon Edelman's excellent book Edelman 2008. See also Chapter 9 of Chalmers's book Chalmers 1996. |