Domain
Artificial Intelligence, Mind & the Future
Computational Theory of Mind
Holds that the human mind is fundamentally an information-processing system — that cognition, and perhaps consciousness itself, is a form of computation running on the brain's…
The Turing Test
A proposed operational test for machine intelligence: if a human judge, conversing by text with both a machine and a person, cannot reliably tell which is…
The Chinese Room Argument
A thought experiment arguing that a computer executing a program — however convincingly it behaves — cannot be said to genuinely understand, have a mind, or…
Biological Naturalism
Searle's own positive theory of mind: consciousness is an ordinary, higher-level biological feature caused by specific neurophysiological processes in the brain — comparable to how digestion…
Multiple Realizability (Substrate Independence)
Holds that the same mental state can be produced by different physical systems — meaning what matters for having a mind is the right functional organization,…
Mind Uploading (Whole Brain Emulation)
Proposes that a mind could in principle be preserved and continued outside its original brain by scanning its full computational structure and running an equally detailed…
The Technological Singularity
Proposes a theoretical future point where self-improving artificial intelligence rapidly and repeatedly makes itself smarter, producing a runaway "intelligence explosion" and a resulting superintelligence whose consequences…
The Alignment Problem
A framing problem rather than a single theory: as AI systems act on increasingly complex real-world objectives, it becomes correspondingly harder for their designers to fully…