Browsing by Subject "Computationalism"

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Open Access
Computationalism: Still the only game in town-A reply to Swiatczak's "Conscious representations: An intractable problem for the computational theory of mind"
(Springer Netherlands, 2012-02-18) Davenport, D.
Mental representations, Swiatczak (Minds Mach 21:19-32, 2011) argues, are fundamentally biochemical and their operations depend on consciousness; hence the computational theory of mind, based as it is on multiple realisability and purely syntactic operations, must be wrong. Swiatczak, however, is mistaken. Computation, properly understood, can afford descriptions/explanations of any physical process, and since Swiatczak accepts that consciousness has a physical basis, his argument against computationalism must fail. Of course, we may not have much idea how consciousness (itself a rather unclear plurality of notions) might be implemented, but we do have a hypothesis-that all of our mental life, including consciousness, is the result of computational processes and so not tied to a biochemical substrate. Like it or not, the computational theory of mind remains the only game in town. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011.
Open Access
Moral mechanisms
(Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2014) Davenport, D.
As highly intelligent autonomous robots are gradually introduced into the home and workplace, ensuring public safety becomes extremely important. Given that such machines will learn from interactions with their environment, standard safety engineering methodologies may not be applicable. Instead, we need to ensure that the machines themselves know right from wrong; we need moral mechanisms. Morality, however, has traditionally been considered a defining characteristic, indeed the sole realm of human beings; that which separates us from animals. But if only humans can be moral, can we build safe robots? If computationalism - roughly the thesis that cognition, including human cognition, is fundamentally computational - is correct, then morality cannot be restricted to human beings (since equivalent cognitive systems can be implemented in any medium). On the other hand, perhaps there is something special about our biological makeup that gives rise to morality, and so computationalism is effectively falsified. This paper examines these issues by looking at the nature of morals and the influence of biology. It concludes that moral behaviour is concerned solely with social well-being, independent of the nature of the individual agents that comprise the group. While our biological makeup is the root of our concept of morals and clearly affects human moral reasoning, there is no basis for believing that it will restrict the development of artificial moral agents. The consequences of such sophisticated artificial mechanisms living alongside natural human ones are also explored.
Open Access
Moral mechanisms
(2012) Davenport, D.
Moral philosophies are arguably all anthropocentric and so fundamentally concerned with biological mechanisms. Computationalism, on the other hand, sees biology as just one possible implementation medium. Can non-human, non-biological agents be moral' This paper looks at the nature of morals, at what is necessary for a mechanism to make moral decisions, and at the impact biology might have on the process. It concludes that moral behaviour is concerned solely with social well-being, independent of the nature of the individual agents that comprise the group. While biology certainly affects human moral reasoning, it in no way restricts the development of artificial moral agents. The consequences of sophisticated artifical mechanisms living with natural human ones is also explored. While the prospects for peaceful coexistence are not particularly good, it is the realisation that humans no longer occupy a privileged place in the world, that is likely to be the most disconcerting. Computationalism implies we are mechanisms; probably the most immoral of moral mechanisms.