UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE
             COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM

                            presents


                    "Trouble with Computation"

                       Prof. J. Mark Bishop
                (Department of Computing, Goldsmiths,
                     University of London, UK)


                    28 November 2012  (Wednesday)
                            1 -2  pm


                  Hatfield, College Lane Campus
                      * * Room C152  * *

                  Everyone is Welcome to Attend

                  Refreshments will be available


Abstract:

In 1980 John Searle first published a novel argument, which has become
known as the Chinese Room Argument (CRA), that purported to demonstrate
that "by itself, syntax is neither constitutive of, nor sufficient for,
semantic content." If correct the CRA suggests that programs cannot
produce minds. Clearly, the suggestion that syntactic manipulation alone
is not sufficient for meaning or thought is significant - not just in
the context of Artificial Intelligence (AI) but in the philosophy of
mind in general, as many prominent theories hold that the essence of
mind is computational. In the 31 years since the CRA was first published
the importance of the argument has merited that it has been attacked
(and defended) in strong measure. In this presentation I will suggest
that the CRA remains the 'elephant in the room' regarding AI and that
even recent "cognitive" approaches to building intelligent machines do
not escape its grasp, because the "trouble with computation" is that it
doesn't take embodiment seriously.

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Hertfordshire Computer Science Research Colloquium
http://cs-colloq.stca.herts.ac.uk