- 224 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
About this book
Could robots be genuinely intelligent? Could they be conscious? Could there be zombies? Prompted by these questions Robert Kirk introduces the main problems of consciousness and sets out a new approach to solving them.
He starts by discussing behaviourism, Turing's test of intelligence and Searle's famous Chinese Room argument, and goes on to examine dualism – the idea that consciousness requires something beyond the physical – together with its opposite, physicalism. Probing the idea of zombies, he concludes they are logically impossible. Having presented the central problems, he sketches his solution: a version of functionalism, according to which consciousness consists in the performance of functions.
While there is wide agreement among philosophers about what the main problems of consciousness are, there is little agreement on how to go about solving them. With this powerful case for his version of functionalism, Kirk offers an engaging introduction to both the problems and a possible solution.
He starts by discussing behaviourism, Turing's test of intelligence and Searle's famous Chinese Room argument, and goes on to examine dualism – the idea that consciousness requires something beyond the physical – together with its opposite, physicalism. Probing the idea of zombies, he concludes they are logically impossible. Having presented the central problems, he sketches his solution: a version of functionalism, according to which consciousness consists in the performance of functions.
While there is wide agreement among philosophers about what the main problems of consciousness are, there is little agreement on how to go about solving them. With this powerful case for his version of functionalism, Kirk offers an engaging introduction to both the problems and a possible solution.
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Behaviour is not enough
- 3 Machines
- 4 Intelligent robots?
- 5 Is something non-physical involved?
- 6 Zombies
- 7 What’s wrong with the zombie idea?
- 8 The basic package
- 9 What’s needed on top of the basic package
- 10 Functionalism
- 11 Functionalism is compulsory
- 12 Is there an explanatory gap?
- 13 Brains in vats and buckets
- References
- Index
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Yes, you can access Robots, Zombies and Us by Robert Kirk in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Philosophy & Mind & Body in Philosophy. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.