Superminds: People Harness Hypercomputation, and More

367 Pages·2003·27.492 MB·English

by  Selmer Bringsjord, Michael Zenzen (auth.)

SUPERMINDS
STUDIES INCOGNITIVESYSTEMS
VOLUME 29
EDITOR
JamesH. Fetzer, University ofMinnesota, Duluth
ADVISORY EDITORIALBOARD
FredDretske, Stanford University
CharlesE. M. Dunlop, UniversityofMichigan, Flint
Ellery Eells, UniveristyofWisconsin, Madison
Alick Elithorn, Royal Free Hospital, London
Jerry Fodor, Rutgers University
Alvin Goldman, UniversityofArizona
Jaakko Hintikka, Boston University
Frank Keil, Cornell University
William Rapaport, State UniversityofNewYork atBuffalo
Barry Richards, Imperial College, London
Stephen Stich, Rutgers University
LuciaVaina, Boston University
TerryWinograd, Stanford University
SUPERMINDS
People Hamess Hypercomputation,
and More
by
SELMER BRINGSJORD
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy U.S.A.
and
MICHAEL ZENZEN
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy U.S.A.
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4020-1095-8 ISBN 978-94-010-0283-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-010-0283-7
Coverdesign paperback edition by Marc Destefano.
Printed on acid-free paper
Ali Rights Reserved
© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2003
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 2003
No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilm ing, recording
or otherwise, without written permis sion from the Publisher, with the exception
of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered
and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
To Elizabeth (SoB.)
and
To those I love (MoZo)
Contents
List of Tables xii
List of Figures xv
Series Preface xvii
Acknowledgments xix
Preface xxv
0.1 The Supermind Manifesto. . . . . . . . xxv
0.2 This Book in The Supermind Quartet . xxvii
1 What is Supermentalism? 1
1.1 Computationalism is Dead. . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Are We Serious? ... . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 What is Dead? - Propositional Answer 4
1.4 The Centrality and Logic ofPersonhood and Cognition
in the Present Project . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5 The Turing Test 13
1.6 Pictorial Overview ofSupermentalism 21
1.7 Propositional Overview ofSupermentalism . 24
1.8 A Primer on Hypercomputation. . . . . . . 25
1.9 An Alternative Characterization of Supermentalism 29
1.9.1 A Scheme for Expressing the Supermind Doc-
trine and Competitors . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 29
1.9.2 Interesting Propositions Related to Hypercom-
putation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.10 Classifying SupermachinesjSuperminds. .. . . . . . 33
1.10.1 The Hierarchy from the Turing Limit Down 33
1.10.2 Additional Needed Concepts 35
VB
CONTENTS
Vlll
1.10.3 The Arithmetic Hierarchy . . . . . . . 38
1.10.4 Zombies and Superminds: a Hierarchy 42
1.11 Previewing What's To Come 43
1.11.1 Chapter 2: A Refutation of Penrose's Godelian
Case against Computationalism. . . . . . . . . . 44
1.11.2 Chapter 3: The Argument from Infinitary Rea
soning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
1.11.3 Ch. 4: Supermentalism and the Fall of Church's
Thesis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
1.11.4 Chapter5: The Zombie Attackon Computation
alism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
1.11.5 Chapter 6: The Argument from Irreversibility. . 47
1.11.6 Chapter 7: What, at Bottom, are Superminds?
Where'd They Come From? 47
1.11.7 Chapter 8: Supermentalism and the Practice of
AIjCogSci. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2 A Refutation of Penrose's Godelian Case 49
2.1 Introduction............ 49
2.2 The Main Positions on AI . . . . . . . . . 51
2.3 Why "Weak" AI is Invulnerable. . . . . . 53
2.4 Background for Penrose's New Godelian Case 56
2.5 The Core Diagonal Argument. . . . . . . 58
2.6 Formal Machinery . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
2.7 Formalizing Penrose's Diagonal Argument 62
2.8 Penrose's Dilemma: Either Way a Fallacy 65
2.9 Possible Replies. . . . . . . . . . 68
2.10 Given 9, The Other Possibilities 71
2.11 Penrose's Last Chance . . . . . . 76
2.12 Conclusion; The Future . . . . . 77
2.13 DistillingPenrose's Promising Intuitions 80
3 The Argument from Infinitary Reasoning 85
3.1 Introduction............. 85
3.2 Discarding Some Initial Objections 87
3.3 The Need for Open-Mindedness. . 88
3.4 Plan ofthe Chapter .... . . . . 91
3.5 Reasoning as Computation in First-Order Logic. 92
3.6 Sharpening Infinitary Reasoning ..... 100
3.7 The Argument from Infinitary Reasoning ... . 106
CONTENTS ix
3.8 Dialectic.......................... 106
3.8.1 Objection 1: It All Hinges on Prior Beliefs. .. 106
3.8.2 Objection 2: It's All Just ManipulationofFinite
Strings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
3.8.3 Objection 3: It All Flies in the Face ofFinitism . 110
3.8.4 Objection 4: "Moore's Case for Finitism" . . . . 113
3.8.5 Objection5: "ReasoningAbout" vs. "Reasoning
With" 119
3.8.6 Objection 6: But Mathematicians Themselves
Don't Agree! 121
3.9 Simon's Dream and Mental Metalogic . . 123
3.9.1 Logical Illusions 123
3.9.1.1 Some Warm-up Problems 123
3.9.1.2 A New Illusion 124
3.10 Mental MetaLogic: A Glimpse. 126
3.10.1 Simon's Dream . . . . . 129
4 Supermentalism and the Fall of Church's Thesis 133
4.1 Background...... . 134
4.2 Mendelson's Attack. . . . . 135
4.3 Mendelson's Rebuttal ... . 142
4.4 Attacking Church's Thesis . . 143
4.5 Objections..... . 152
4.5.1 Objection 1 . 152
4.5.2 Objection 2 . 154
4.5.3 Objection 3 155
4.5.4 Objection 4 156
4.5.5 Objection 5 157
4.6 Our Arg3 in Context: Other Attacks on CT 159
4.6.1 Kalmar's Argument against CT . . 161
4.6.2 Cleland's Doubts about CT . . . . . . 164
5 The Zombie Attack on Computationalism 171
5.1 Introduction.......... . 171
5.2 Dennett's Dilemma. . . . . . . . . 173
5.3 Targeting Computationalism ... . 177
5.4 Can Dennett Dodge His Dilemma? . 179
5.4.1 Dennett's Objection from Method . 183
5.4.2 Dennett's "Oops" Objection: Zombiesvs. Zimboes183
5.4.3 A Direct Attack on Rosenthal's HOT 188
x CONTENTS
5.4.4 Dennett's Objection from Racism. · 191
5.5 Two Final Moves · 195
5.6 Conclusion . .200
6 The Argument from Irreversibility 201
6.1 Introduction............. · 201
6.2 The Computational Conception of Mind .202
6.3 Rudiments of Reversibility . .202
6.4 The Argument from Irreversibility . .208
6.4.1 The Starting Point: Proposition 1 .208
6.4.2 Clarifying 'Consciousness' ..... .208
6.4.3 The Argument from Irreversibility .210
6.5 Dialectic............... .211
6.5.1 Objection 1 . .211
6.5.2 Objection 2 (From Physics) · 214
6.5.3 Objection 3 · 218
6.5.4 Objection 4 · 218
6.5.5 Objection 5 .220
6.5.6 Objection 6 .226
6.5.7 Objection 7 .229
6.5.8 Objection 8 .233
6.5.9 Objection 9 .234
6.5.10 Objection 10 .236
7 What are We? Where'd We Come From? 237
7.1 What, at Bottom, Are We? . . . . . . . 237
7.2 Perhaps Superminds are Simple Souls .. . . 241
7.2.1 Chisholm's Argument . . . . . . . . . 242
7.2.2 The Unexpected Attack from Extended Selves . 245
7.3 How'd We Get Here? . . . . 251
7.3.1 Pinker's Position . . . . . . . . . 252
7.3.2 Wallace's Paradox . . . . . . . . 253
7.3.3 Wallace's Paradox Still Stands . 254
7.3.3.1 Clarifying Wallace's Paradox . 254
7.3.3.2 ClassifyingReaction toWallace'sPara-
dox 265
7.3.3.3 The Problems Infecting Reductionism . 267
7.3.3.3.1 ReductionismCan'tReduce In-
finitary Reasoning 269
CONTENTS
Xl
7.3.3.3.2 The Second Problem Plagu-
ing Reductionism . 270
7.3.3.4 Devlin's Reductionism 272
7.3.4 What, Then, Should We Conclude? 274
7.4 Toward the Second Argument for Doubting that Evo
lution Produced Us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
8 Supermentalism and the Practice of AI 278
8.1 Toward the Final Stage ofthe Project . . . . . . . . . . 278
8.2 The Eight-fold Prescription for the Practice of AI . ... 279
8.3 PI: Building Consciously Harnessable Hypercomputers
is Hard, but Push Ahead Anyway. . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
8.3.1 The Argument from Infinity 281
8.3.2 The Argument from the Absence of Candidates. 281
8.3.3 The Busy Beaver Competition . . . . . . . . . . 283
8.4 P2: Focus on Building Artificial Animals (Zombanimals) 284
8.4.1 The Concept of Zombanimalhood Introduced . 284
8.4.2 Simple Zombanimals . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
8.4.3 From Simple to Complex Zombanimals . 288
8.4.4 From Zombanimals to Essence of AI . 289
8.4.5 The Inductive Argument. . . . . . 290
8.4.6 AI as Zombanimal Construction . . . 293
8.4.7 Yes, but What about People? . . . . . 295
8.5 P3: Pursue What We have Dubbed "Psychometric AI" . 296
8.6 P4: TakeExperimental PsychologyofReasoning Seriously299
8.7 P5: Be Brutally Honest about the Limitations of Stan-
dard Schemes for Knowledge Representation and Rea-
soning 301
8.8 P6: Investigate Language Acquisition. . . . . . . . . . . 302
8.9 P7: Pursue the Mathematical Modeling of Mentation,
Independent of Even Future Implementation. . 302
8.10 P8: Put Connectionism in its Place 303
Bibliography 309
Index 329