Thinking Computers and Virtual Persons: Essays on the Intentionality of Machines

by Eric Dietrich (Editor)

Can computers think? This book is a response to John Searle's controversial Chinese Room Ar argument, which was intended to demonstrate that thinking, understanding, and intelligence are more than simply the execution of algorithms -- that is, that machines cannot think. This collection demonstrates advances by the computationalists toward showing that thinking is in fact an algorithm process, which can be performed by machines.

363 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1994

About the author

Eric Dietrich is a professor of philosophy at Binghamton University. Before studying philosophy, he was a concert pianist and mountain climber. He has a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of Wyoming, and a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Arizona. Between those two degrees, he worked for a Nasa/Defense Department contractor in their artificial intelligence unit. He is the author of numerous papers, most recently focusing on paraconsistent logic and true contradictions. His most-read paper is "There is no progress in philosophy" (Essays in Philosophy, vol. 12 iss. 2, 2011; http://commons.pacificu.edu/eip/vol12...). With Tara Fox Hall, he wrote "The Allure of the Serial Killer," which came out in the book Serial Killers, edited by Sara Waller. He co-authored Sisyphus's Boulder: Consciousness and the Limits of the Knowable, a book on consciousness's resistance to scientific explanation. He also edits the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence.