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7Free at last! Free at last! Thank evolution, free at last!Artificial Intelligence 169 (2): 165-173. 2005.
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5Using regression-match graphs to control search in planningArtificial Intelligence 109 (1-2): 111-159. 1999.
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14Planning: What it is, what it could be, an introduction to the special issue on planning and schedulingArtificial Intelligence 76 (1-2): 1-16. 1995.
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3Building large knowledge-based systems: Representation and inference in the cyc projectArtificial Intelligence 61 (1): 53-63. 1993.
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12Higher-Order Thought Rendered Defenseless: Review of Consciousness and Self-Consciousness: A Defense of the Higher-Order Thought Theory of Consciousness by Rocco Gennaro (review)PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 4. 1998.
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29A little static for the dynamicists review of ShanahanInternational Journal of Machine Consciousness 3 (02): 361-365. 2011.
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1996On the Claim that a Table-Lookup Program Could Pass the Turing TestMinds and Machines 24 (2): 143-188. 2014.The claim has often been made that passing the Turing Test would not be sufficient to prove that a computer program was intelligent because a trivial program could do it, namely, the “Humongous-Table (HT) Program”, which simply looks up in a table what to say next. This claim is examined in detail. Three ground rules are argued for: (1) That the HT program must be exhaustive, and not be based on some vaguely imagined set of tricks. (2) That the HT program must not be created by some set of senti…Read more
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4We've been framed: Or, why AI is innocent of the frame problemIn Zenon W. Pylyshyn (ed.), The Robot's Dilemma: The Frame Problem in Artificial Intelligence, Ablex. 1987.
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19Planning and ActingCognitive Science 2 (2): 71-100. 1978.A new theory of problem solving is presented, which embeds problem solving in the theory of action; in this theory, a problem is just a difficult action. Making this work requires a sophisticated language for‐talking about plans and their execution. This language allows a broad range of types of action, and can also be used to express rules for choosing and scheduling plans. To ensure flexibility, the problem solver consists of an interpreter driven by a theorem prover which actually manipulates…Read more
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Computationally Constrained BeliefsJournal of Consciousness Studies 20 (5-6): 124-150. 2013.People and intelligent computers, if there ever are any, will both have to believe certain things in order to be intelligent agents at all, or to be a particular sort of intelligent agent. I distinguish implicit beliefs that are inherent in the architecture of a natural or artificial agent, in the way it is 'wired', from explicit beliefs that are encoded in a way that makes them easier to learn and to erase if proven mistaken. I introduce the term IFI, which stands for irresistible framework int…Read more
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56The digital computer as red HerringPsycoloquy 12 (54). 2001.Stevan Harnad correctly perceives a deep problem in computationalism, the hypothesis that cognition is computation, namely, that the symbols manipulated by a computational entity do not automatically mean anything. Perhaps, he proposes, transducers and neural nets will not have this problem. His analysis goes wrong from the start, because computationalism is not as rigid a set of theories as he thinks. Transducers and neural nets are just two kinds of computational system, among many, and any so…Read more
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37A Temporal Logic for Reasoning about Processes and PlansCognitive Science 6 (2): 101-155. 1982.Much previous work in artificial intelligence has neglected representing time in all its complexity. In particular, it has neglected continuous change and the indeterminacy of the future. To rectify this, I have developed a first‐order temporal logic, in which it is possible to name and prove things about facts, events, plans, and world histories. In particular, the logic provides analyses of causality, continuous change in quantities, the persistence of facts (the frame problem), and the relati…Read more
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1095Zombies are hypothetical creatures identical to us in behavior and internal functionality, but lacking experience. When the concept of zombie is examined in careful detail, it is found that the attempt to keep experience out does not work. So the concept of zombie is the same as the concept of person. Because they are only trivially conceivable, zombies are in a sense inconceivable.
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46What matters to a machineIn Michael Anderson & Susan Leigh Anderson (eds.), Machine Ethics, Cambridge Univ. Press. pp. 88--114. 2011.
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57Review of Aristotle's Laptop: The Discovery of Our Informational Mind by Igor Aleksander and Helen Morton (review)International Journal of Machine Consciousness 6 (1): 45-48. 2014.Drew McDermott, Int. J. Mach. Conscious., 06, 45 (2014). DOI: 10.1142/S1793843014400071.
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25Dodging the explanatory gap–or bridging itBehavioral and Brain Sciences 30 (5-6): 518-518. 2007.Assuming our understanding of the brain continues to advance, we will at some point have a computational theory of how access consciousness works. Block's supposed additional kind of consciousness will not appear in this theory, and continued belief in it will be difficult to sustain. Appeals to to experience such-and-such will carry little weight when we cannot locate a subject for whom it might be like something
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270Artificial intelligence and consciousnessIn Morris Moscovitch, Philip Zelazo & Evan Thompson (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness, Cambridge University Press. pp. 117--150. 2007.
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584Logic is useful as a neutral formalism for expressing the contents of mental representations. It can be used to extract crisp conclusions regarding the higher-order theory of phenomenal consciousness developed in (McDermott 2001, 20007). A key aspect of conscious perceptions is their connection to the distinction between appearance and reality. Perceptions must often be corrected. To do so requires that the logic of perception be able to represent the logical structure of judgment events, that i…Read more
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Yale UniversityRegular Faculty
New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |