1. 29-Jan-00 AI and Personhood AI proponents: a machine as complex as a brain would be as intelligent as a person maybe it would be a person. Hidden assumptions: intelligence: I/O, storage, and processing capabilities the brain: a machine whose function can be duplicated by other machines (and function is what matters) a person: an intelligent hunk of meat

2. 29-Jan-00 What makes a person? Is there anything to being a person besides “intelligence”? Consciousness: is it an ‘epiphenomenon’ – or can it affect the body? Will: do we make real choices, or are they determined by the laws of physics? Affections: is there a ‘love’ algorithm? Spirit: is there a human capability to know God beyond the five sense? Moral responsibility: what are you doing when you kick your computer – punishment?

3. 29-Jan-00 What are these views called? “all the world (including the brain and mind) operate according to physical laws” Materialism [or metaphysical materialism] “There is a part of the mind (or soul or spirit) that is outside of nature, exempt from physical laws” Dualism [or Cartesian dualism] “The mind is the program running on the ‘wet-ware’ of the brain” Functionalism [or non-reductive materialism]

4. 29-Jan-00 Non-Reductive Materialism Characteristics there is no non-physical part of a person mental processes can be localized in the brain consciousness, will, etc. are real, but they are an ‘emergent property’ of brain function Questions How could there be a real will or moral responsibility? Where is the intensionality or meaning? In a pattern? Both body-identity and program-identity seem problematic What then can a verse like Matt. 10:28 mean? [ Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. ] What about the existence of angels, God if there is no second substance? What of church history and doctrine?

5. 29-Jan-00 Cartesian Dualism Characteristics The soul is a second substance, created by God, like the Angels The mind is a faculty of the soul, and it can affect the body Whatever the brain does, it is not the mind Questions A second substance is messy… Where does this soul come from? How does it affect the body without breaking the laws of nature? It seems that current research is localizing more and more mental processes in the brain… What does this do to the science of AI?