Robots, zombies and us: understanding consciousness

By:

Kirk, Robert

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: London Bloomsbury 2017Description: ix, 192 pISBN:

9781474286596

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

128.2 K4R6

Summary: Could robots be genuinely intelligent? Could they be conscious? Could there be zombies? Prompted by these questions Robert Kirk introduces the main problems of consciousness and sets out a new approach to solving them. He starts by discussing behaviourism, Turing's test of intelligence and Searle's famous Chinese Room argument, and goes on to examine dualism – the idea that consciousness requires something beyond the physical – together with its opposite, physicalism. Probing the idea of zombies, he concludes they are logically impossible. Having presented the central problems, he sketches his solution: a version of functionalism, according to which consciousness consists in the performance of functions. While there is wide agreement among philosophers about what the main problems of consciousness are, there is little agreement on how to go about solving them. With this powerful case for his version of functionalism, Kirk offers an engaging introduction to both the problems and a possible solution. https://www.bloomsbury.com/in/robots-zombies-and-us-9781474286602/

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Book	Ahmedabad General Stacks	Non-fiction	128.2 K4R6 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	6		196153

Total holds: 0

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Includes bibliographical references and index.

Could robots be genuinely intelligent? Could they be conscious? Could there be zombies? Prompted by these questions Robert Kirk introduces the main problems of consciousness and sets out a new approach to solving them.

He starts by discussing behaviourism, Turing's test of intelligence and Searle's famous Chinese Room argument, and goes on to examine dualism – the idea that consciousness requires something beyond the physical – together with its opposite, physicalism. Probing the idea of zombies, he concludes they are logically impossible. Having presented the central problems, he sketches his solution: a version of functionalism, according to which consciousness consists in the performance of functions.

While there is wide agreement among philosophers about what the main problems of consciousness are, there is little agreement on how to go about solving them. With this powerful case for his version of functionalism, Kirk offers an engaging introduction to both the problems and a possible solution.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/in/robots-zombies-and-us-9781474286602/

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