PHI 398, Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence:  Take-Home Final Examination Questions
DUE:  Friday, December 13 (yes, indeed!) to instructor's office (or under door) by 5 p.m.
Lateness by even one minute for reasons other than documented medical reasons will result in the loss of one grade.  After 5 pm, Saturday Dec 14, failure on the assignment is certain. (This is the trade for the instructor keeping the exam short.)
Write on FOUR of the following  eleven questions.  Please limit each answer to approximately one typed page (250 words).  Organize and revise your answers carefully.  They must be typed, numbered (by question number), stapled together (no folders or binders), and will be judged by high standards of language-use, organization, and philosophical substance.

Paraphrase, not quote.  Refer to particular passages in our reading, "(Nagel p. 345)".  Use examples, preferably your own examples (if sometimes modeled after others'-e.g., don't use the "midnight snack" frame).  Make ONE point clearly and carefully; avoid listing different objections or support.  Proofread; having someone else proofread.  (Even-especially-- philosophers should have friends.)

1.  There are several points that may be extracted from Thomas Nagel's rich and suggestive "What is it Like to Be a Bat?"  Sharply delineate one possible, important point and discuss its relevance for the big issues in the philosophy of mind.

2.  Consider Searle's Chinese Room Argument.  Assume the reader knows the example well, so doesn't need to have it described.  Describe its supposed implication in the philosophy of AI (its precise implication) and develop one single line of criticism of it, perhaps inspired by Chalmers' critique (or you own, or Boden's, or someone else's). Writing on this question requires you to criticize the Chinese Room on one point.

3.  What precisely is Chalmers' point in the Zombie Argument?  What is the argument, spelled out in numbered premises and a conclusion?  Which premise is weakest, and why?

4.  The instructor made a distinction between knowing "what it is to be like" a dog, bat, or person, and knowing "that there is something that it is to be like" another creature.  Describe this difference.  When can we know one and not the other-if we can?  What does it show about the nature of consciousness?

5.  Are animals conscious?  Which ones and why?  Describe in detail your definition of consciousness and your criteria for determining when an entity has it.

6.  There is a difference between having consciousness, maybe even a "lot" of it, and having human-like consciousness, just as there is a difference between having intelligence (maybe a lot of it, too) and human-like intelligence.  Discuss, with reference to determining an entity's consciousness and the Turing Test.

7.  Discuss in detail the differences among minds always being physically "implemented," their being physically implemented as a matter of physical necessity, and their being physically implemented as a matter of logical or semantic necessity.  Connect this distinction to zombies, reduction, and supervenience.
 
8.  Describe the inverted spectrum argument and what Chalmers (and others) think is its implication for the philosophy of mind (and AI).  The inverted spectrum involves the notion of "visual qualia."  Are qualia distinctively visual? Could a creature ever confuse an acoustic or olfactory sensation (as a qualia) with a visual one?  Is there a plausible "inverted spectrum" argument that could be made with regard to a sense other than vision?

9.  What Chalmers calls the "epistemic asymmetry" argument has to do with the difference between first-person knowledge or access, and third-person access.  Descartes seems to have been the first person in the history of philosophy consistently to develop a first-person, individualistic perspective in the philosophy of mind.  The "problem" is then essentially to reconcile this with the third-person perspective.  How is this involved in the Turing Test and Nagel's "Bat" essay?  Discuss.

10.  The "Knowledge Argument" (also known as the "Problem with (Neuroscientist) Mary", Chalmers pp. 103f)  crucially involves two different ways of what it is to "understand" or "know" something.  (See # 9.)  What is this argument?  Analyze in some detail the sense or senses of 'know' or 'understand' at use in this argument, and argue for a position about whether this shows the argument is valid, or invalid.

11.  Surely someone doesn't have to have sight to be intelligent or consciousness (blindness).  Likewise for hearing (deafness).  Ditto for touch, smell, taste, and kinesthetic sensations.  It seems obvious that no single sense is necessary for intelligence or consciousness.  Doesn't this strongly suggest that senses (any of them, in any combination) are not required for intelligence or consciousness, even human-like intelligence or consciousness.  Why then would some people argue that perceptual embodiment is essential?  Which senses, and why?  Are these embodiment-advocates confusing the question of whether a creature has consciousness or intelligence with the question of how we could determine it, and which forms of consciousness or intelligence we'd understand and empathize with?



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