The Mechanical Mind: A Philosophical Introduction to Minds, Machines and Mental Representation

Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Contents......Page 5
List of figures......Page 9
Preface to the first edition......Page 10
Preface to the second edition......Page 12
Introduction: the mechanical mind......Page 14
The mechanical world picture......Page 15
The mind......Page 18
The puzzle of representation......Page 21
The idea of representation......Page 24
Pictures and resemblance......Page 26
Linguistic representation......Page 33
Mental representation......Page 35
Thought and consciousness......Page 39
Intentionality......Page 43
Brentano's thesis......Page 49
Conclusion: from representation to the mind......Page 53
Further reading......Page 54
Understanding thinkers and their thoughts......Page 55
The mind  body problem......Page 56
Understanding other minds......Page 60
The causal picture of thoughts......Page 67
Common-sense psychology......Page 75
The science of thought: elimination or vindication?......Page 83
Theory versus simulation......Page 90
Conclusion: from representation to computation......Page 93
Further reading......Page 94
Computers and thought......Page 96
Computation, functions and algorithms......Page 98
Turing machines......Page 105
Coding and symbols......Page 112
Instantiating a function and computing a function......Page 115
Automatic algorithms......Page 117
Thinking computers?......Page 122
Artificial intelligence......Page 127
Can thinking be captured by rules and representations?......Page 131
The Chinese room......Page 136
Conclusion: can a computer think?......Page 141
Further reading......Page 142
The mechanisms of thought......Page 143
Cognition, computation and functionalism......Page 144
The language of thought......Page 147
Syntax and semantics......Page 150
The argument for the language of thought......Page 153
The modularity of mind......Page 161
Problems for the language of thought......Page 167
'Brainy' computers......Page 172
Conclusion: does computation explain representation?......Page 180
Explaining mental representation......Page 182
Conceptual and naturalistic definitions......Page 185
Causal theories of mental representation......Page 188
The problem of error......Page 191
Mental representation and success in action......Page 198
Mental representation and biological function......Page 202
Evolution and the mind......Page 207
Against reduction and definition......Page 213
Conclusion: can representation be reductively explained?......Page 221
Further reading......Page 222
Consciousness and the mechanical mind......Page 224
Consciousness, 'what it's like' and qualia......Page 228
Consciousness and physicalism......Page 232
The limits of scientific knowledge......Page 240
Conclusion: what do the problems of consciousness tell us about the mechanical mind?......Page 243
Further reading......Page 244
Glossary......Page 246
The mechanical mind: a chronology......Page 251
Notes......Page 255
Index......Page 269