Phil 102: Introduction

to Philosophy:
1
“Knowledge & Reality”
A sampler of questions and issues

Professor Amy M. Schmitter, Department of Philosophy

2 This Week: Thursday, March 23,
CCIS 1-140
 Friday, March 24, 3-4:30, St.
3
Joseph’s College, Boardroom

MODERATOR:
DR. MARIE-EVE MORIN, VICE-DEAN OF ARTS & PROFESSOR - PHILOSOPHY
PANELISTS:
DR. AMY SCHMITTER, PROFESSOR - PHILOSOPHY
DR. ROBERT BURCH, PROFESSOR EMERITUS - PHILOSOPHY
DR. JACK ZUPKO, INTERIM CHAIR & PROFESSOR - PHILOSOPHY
DR. MATTHEW KOSTELECKY, DEAN & ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR - SJC
Friday, March 24, 2023, 3:00 – 4:30pm (MT)
St. Joseph’s College Boardroom and on Zoom
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting

Department of Philosophy,
University of Alberta
 Fourth assignment
4 ´ Due March 31 at 6 p.m.
´ Objections, Evaluations and Constructing a Position:
´ You want to take a stand on some philosophical issue, which requires:
´ Explaining what’s at issue;
´ Giving reasons for your views;
´ Raising relevant objections to your thesis . . .
´ Considering how you can address them.
´ And reflecting on how thoroughly you have supported your thesis –
so as to be clear about what case you have made.
´ So, the aim is to stick to a main point and develop the best case you can,
´ Not to say as much as possible that might sorta, kinda be relevant
to the topic.
´ Even if the topic asks several sub-questions, they are supposed to be
developments of the overall point.
´ It is acceptable to slightly change or limit the question if it makes sense
and you are very clear about what question you are addressing.
´ You should also be fair to the positions you are arguing against.
´ In short, this assignment asks you to use the various skills you practiced
in the previous assignments.
´ Remember that you are required to cite sources you have consulted and help
you have received.
 Where we are and where we are going
5 Last week: we started thinking about what constitutes a mind.
´ Looked at two dualist conceptions from Ibn Sina and Descartes
´ Including Descartes’s argument for substance-dualism
´ And considered some challenges:
´ One posed by Princess Elisabeth for how minds and bodies
interact,
´ One posed by Kim about how the non-spatial mind can be paired
with the body at all (the “causal pairing” problem).
´ This week:
´ We are continuing with themes from the philosophy of mind, but
turning to a somewhat different issue about minds:
´ What is the nature of thinking?
´ Is it something that machines (e.g., computers) can do?
´ How does thinking relate to consciousness . . .
´ Or to having experience,
´ Or to intelligence . . .
´ Or to understanding . . .
´ Or to being a “gathering point . . . “
´ Or to any other mental states or activities?
6 Descartes’s method and mechanism
´ The Discourse on Method was published in 1637, along with the
Geometry, Optics, and Meteorology, which were essays in his
“method.” e.g., the
circulation
´ Part 5 of Discourse on Method sets out to show that almost all of the of blood,
life activities we see humans and other animals perform can be eating,
explained through the physical makeup of a body just like a human (or movement
animal) body “in the outward shape of its limbs and in the internal in space,
crying out
arrangement of its organs”.
when
´ We don’t need any mysterious life force, or even a mind to explain poked, etc.
what happens for these activities.
´ Instead, such life activities can be explained in just the same way
as can ”automatons, or moving machines” (p. 139) . . .
´ according to the “nature which acts in them according to the
disposition of their organs . . . in the same way [as] a clock
consisting only of wheels and springs” (DM 5, p. 139).
´ More generally, lots of what both humans, animals do can be
explained just as we explain machines– by the arrangement of
physical parts and transfer of motion among them.
 Another approach to Descartes’s mind-
7
body distinction
´ Descartes then asks us to consider how “if any such machines
bore a resemblance to our bodies and imitated our actions as
closely as possible for all practical purposes,” we could tell the
This question
difference.
raises some new
issues beyond ´ That is, how could we tell the difference between very
what we saw last sophisticated robots that looked just like other humans and
week. “real men” (humans)?
´ What do you think Descartes would hold humans have that
robots do not?
If there’s ´ Both have bodies,
something that
´ But humans also have minds.
could not be
explained v QUESTION: What – if anything – do humans have or do
thus, then that could not be explained in terms of the “wheels and
perhaps the springs” of a machine?
mind could
explain it.
 Descartes’s two tests
8
´ Suppose we were faced with something that looks like a human being, but we
aren’t sure whether they might not be a convincing-looking robot , “we should
still have two very certain means of recognizing that they were not real men.”
Ø “The first is that they could never use words, or put together other signs, as
we do in order to declare our thoughts to others . . . We can certainly
conceive of a machine so constructed that it utters words, and even utters
words which correspond to bodily actions causing a change in its organs . . .
But it is not conceivable that such a machine could produce different
arrangements of words so as to give an appropriately meaningful answer to
whatever is said in its presence . . .”
Do you Ø “Secondly, even though such machines might do some things as well as we
think it is do them, or perhaps even better, they would inevitably fail in others, which
would reveal that they were acting not through understanding but only from
plausible
the disposition of their organs . . .”
that no
´ What are these two tests suppose to test for?
mere
machine ´ Whether the behavior is voluntary, deliberate behavior initiated by a mind.
could ´ Why do you think they are supposed to work?
pass these ´ They are supposed to test whether the behavior can be explained just by the
tests? “disposition of the organs” (physical) or if it requires something more.
´ Namely, “reason” (including the perception of meaning).
9
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
´ German, 1646–1716
´ Wrote mostly in Latin, French, and some German, as well
as other languages.
´ Philosopher, mathematician, natural scientist, diplomat
and courtier, etc., etc.
´ Invented calculus about simultaneously with Isaac Newton
´ Designed a calculating machine (around 1672; a prototype
from 1694 still exists) – able to perform addition,
subtraction, multiplication, and division.
 Leibniz’s mill argument
10

“. . . perception and that which depends on it cannot be explained mechanically, that is,
by means of shapes and motions. And if we suppose that there were a machine whose
structure makes it think, feel, and have perception, we could imagine it increased in size
while keeping the same proportions, so that one could enter it as one does with a mill. If
we were then to go around inside it, we would see only parts pushing one another, and
never anything which would explain a perception. . . .” (Monadology §17).
´ What does he mean by “perception”? BTW, don’t worry about
´ covers “thinking” (taking things in), what Leibniz means by
´ Anything else you might add? ”the simple substance”
(“monad”), except that it is
´ What is Leibniz’s point? different from a “machine.”
´ How does this compare to Descartes’s two tests?
´ Descartes focuses on reason; Leibniz focuses on perception. But are they making
similar points?
11 Points of agreement and difference
between Descartes and Leibniz

´ They agree that the operations (pushes, pulls and motions) of

physical things are different in kind from thinking (reasoning) or
perceiving.
´ So different that they cannot explain thinking or perceiving.
´ And thinking or perceiving cannot be reduced to the
operations of physical things.
´ But they take somewhat different positions on the metaphysics of
minds and bodies (physical things):
´ Descartes is a substance-dualist (they are two different things)
´ Leibniz does not think that there is a dualism of things.
 From clocks to . . . AI?
12
´ Descartes and Leibniz talk about clocks and mills, but how do you
think we would address their questions now?
´ As a matter of Artificial intelligence (‘can computers think?’)
´ Perhaps also as a matter of animal intelligence . . .
´ This is why the reading for next time is Turing’s “Computing
Machinery and Intelligence” (from 300 years later).
´ Alan Turing (1912 –1954)
´ Mathematician, cryptographer and central figure in foundations of
computing (e.g., Turing machines),
´ Codebreaker in WWII at Bletchley Park.
´ He did study some philosophy, and this article was published in
the philosophy journal Mind in 1950.
´ Turing proposes what has now become known as ‘the Turing test,’ but
which he called the ‘Imitation Game.’
´ Have you heard of the Turing test before?
´ Turing himself is careful, but it has come to be known as a test for
whether we have real artificial intelligence and whether a machine
(computer) can qualify as thinking.
13 Turing’s proposal
´ “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” proposes “to consider the
question, ‘Can machines think?’” (p. 441).
´ But Turing thinks this question is not well-formed and so he says that “I
shall replace the question by another which is closely related to it and is
expressed in relatively unambiguous words.”
´ And then he introduces ”the imitation game,”
´ Something like a party game with 3 people:
´ two people (A and B) go into a separate room and each tries to
convince th third person (the tester) that they are A.
´ Then replace B with a computer, which “tries” to imitate a person.
´ Up to the tester up to distinguish between the two.
´ If the computer succeeds in this game, it is supposed to provide some
sort of evidence for the question it has replaced, whether machines can
think.
 Testing the Turing Test?
14
´ The Imitation Game (Turing test) has been set up as a real test and
competition – the Loebner Prize Competition:
“The Loebner Prize is the oldest Turing Test contest, started in 1991 by
Hugh Loebner and the Cambridge Centre for Behavioural studies. Since
then, a number of institutions across the globe have hosted the competition
including recently, the Universities of Reading, Exeter and Ulster. From
2014, the contest has been run under the aegis of the AISB, the world’s first
AI society (founded 1964) at Bletchley Park where Alan Turing worked as
a code-breaker during World War 2.” (from https://aisb.org.uk/aisb-events/)
´ The original rules specify two one-time-only prizes: $25,000 “for the first
program that judges cannot distinguish from a real human and which can
convince judges that the human is the computer program”; $100,000 “for
These the first program that judges cannot distinguish from a real human in a
Turing test that includes deciphering and understanding text, visual, and
prizes have
auditory input.”
never been
awarded . . . ´ The contest now seems to be defunct (the last competition was in 2019)
´ This contest was heavily criticized: “obnoxious and stupid” (M.Minsky); “a
‘bot beauty contest’” (see J. Sundman, “Artificial Stupidity,” Salon,
February 26, 2003).
´ But could current chatbots win it? Maybe it was stopped too soon . . .
 The Eliza Chatbot (originally ‘chatterbot’):
15 developed by J. Weizenbaum, 1966
´ A user would type in some words, and the program would use a pattern
matching and substitution methodology to produce “responses” that simulated
conversation.
´ Different scripts were used with different substitutions, including a “DOCTOR”
script, which was modeled on a kind of psychotherapist, who gives non-
directional questions reflecting what the patient said:
´ Consider this “exchange” (from a reconstruction by N. Landsteiner, 2005)
Eliza – the - DOCTOR Human “patient”
Is something troubling you ? Men are all alike.
What is the connection, do you suppose ? They're always bugging us about
something or other.
Can you think of a specific example ? Well, my boyfriend made me come here.
Is it important to you that your boyfriend He says I'm depressed much of the time.
made you come here?
I am sorry to hear that you are depressed. It's true. I am unhappy.
Can you explain what made you ...
unhappy?
16 Eliza v. contemporary chatbots
´ Eliza’s scripts worked by analyzing patterns in the inputs and using
substitutions to generate responses. Relatively simple, but worked by trying
to find some underlying structure (or “grammar”).
´ Many of the Loebner Prize contestants worked this way– and did very badly.
´ But there are also ”programs” that simply have gigantic databases – force-
fed gazillions of possible inputs and appropriate outputs.
´ And then there are Large Language Models like GPT-4 (ChatGPT from
OpenAI):
´ [They] work by predicting the likelihood that one word or phrase will
follow another. These predictions are based on millions of parameters
(in essence, umpteen pages of digital text). Other machine learning
techniques are then used to “tune” the chatbot’s responses, training
output prompts to be more in line with human language use. (Luke
Stark, “ChatGPT is Mickey Mouse,” “Philosophers on Large Language
Models,” Daily Nous, 14 March 2023)
´ [They] are marvels of machine learning. Roughly speaking, they take
huge amounts of data, search for patterns in it and become increasingly
proficient at generating statistically probable outputs — such as
seemingly humanlike language and thought. (Noam Chomsky, Ian
Roberts and Jeffrey Watumull, New York Times, March 8, 2023).
17
A Puzzle for you . . .
´ ChatGPT does much, much better at sounding human-like (at
least after one or two prompts) than previous chatbots.
´ But the way it works is not – indeed, cannot – be the way humans
learn language.
´ (It is also necessarily parasitic on humans using a lot of
language, as well as being corrected by humans.)
´ So, it seems to use language more “successfully” when it “learns”
it in a fundamentally different way from how we do.
´ Does this mean that it is using language in a fundamentally
different way from how we do?
´ Is it understanding language?
 E D UX
R Possible topics in Social Ontology
18
or Social Epistemology
v A poll about what topics to cover for the last week -- class
choice for topics in social ontology or epistemology:
So far:
• Conspiracy
v Metaphysics of Sex (and Gender),
theories; v Metaphysics of Race,
• (astrology?); v Social Construction,
• ethics of
knowledge v self and other;
production and v Testimonial injustice (who ya gonna believe?),
dissemination in v Conspiracy theories,
social contexts;
• Metaphysics of v Epistemic bubbles (who talks to who),
sex. v Expertise and trust (about climate change or vaccines)
v Disinformation;
v Disagreement among peers
v Suggestion box is now open on eClass.