The Search For A Logical Robot: Critical Remarks On Artificial Intelligence

The recent history of technological development has raised significant questions regarding the future possibility of genuine artificial intelligence. Specifically, many scientists and philosophers (along with the general public) have become increasingly convinced that it will someday be possible to use technological innovations in order to construct a being capable of thinking and reasoning in the same ways that human beings do. In addition to the popular worries that this has raised concerning the practical risks and metaphysical implications that such a being would present, these speculations have also led many to reflect on how such a being could be identified, were one to emerge. 

These reflections have received further encouragement from the advent of large language models such as ChatGPT, which emulate human speech patterns with an astonishing degree of accuracy. Indeed, some computer scientists have already been fully persuaded that ChatGPT is a genuine rational subject that deserves to be treated as such. However, to what extent are these convictions justified? In order to answer this question, we must first investigate what the appropriate criteria for identifying the emergence of genuine artificial intelligence could possibly be. The success of this investigation, in turn, will depend on a proper conception of intelligence as such.

In a recent article, Jensen Suther surveys contemporary philosophical thought on artificial intelligence and highlights several plausible requirements that any intelligent being must satisfy. One of these requirements, famously defended by Hubert Dreyfus, holds that any genuine intelligence must be embodied. When we think about genuinely intelligent behavior, one of its core elements involves an ability to modify one’s behavior in light of success or failure. If a being has no capacity to receive data, act in light of that data, and adjust its behavior in light of the results of their activity, then in what sense can it be said to be reasoning at all? If we accept that this capacity for informed behavioral modification is a real requirement for intelligence, there are two important implications: First, any genuinely intelligent being must have some sort of body capable of behaving in certain ways and having that behavior modified in light of incoming data. Second, that being must have some determinate goal that informs how it modifies its behavior in light of incoming data. In the absence of some goal, there would be nothing to guide its behavioral modification and, consequently, no basis for distinguishing intelligent behavioral modification from unintelligent modification, so this latter feature is just as necessary as the former. Together, we can call them “the embodiment criterion”. 

However, even if we accept the embodiment criterion for genuine intelligence, there is another key feature which any intelligent being must possess: Intelligent beings, by thinking, must be capable of determining their own activity as embodied beings. We can call this the “self-determination criterion”. On the face of it, this criterion seems straightforward enough. By thinking and reasoning, intelligent creatures can decide what they should do in light of what is the case and act accordingly. However, in what sense can an agent be genuinely self-determining if it cannot determine the principles that govern its own acts of thinking and reasoning? If an artificial being is pre-programmed with rules for thinking or methods for forming such rules, then its own “rational” procedures are determined by a source that is wholly external to it. If it is not pre-programmed with rules or rule-forming methods, then it is hard to see how it can be said to have rule-governed behavior at all. In the former case, it seems like the agent is governed by external constraints in a way that is incompatible with genuine intelligence. In the latter case, it seems unconstrained in a way that is also incompatible. 

For human beings, a solution to this dilemma is possible: When human beings think, they also place themselves under a shared set of rules that characterize the thoughts of the intellectual community that they are a part of. By taking on the responsibility to think in accordance with these rules, these rules govern their particular acts of thinking without being pre-programmed in them by any external source. To the extent that the rules governing human thinking are established by a community, human thinking can be said to be a socially constituted phenomenon that is self-imposed by individual thinkers. Furthermore, human thinkers remain genuinely self-determining insofar as they collectively shape the public rules that govern them by reasoning with one another. 

However, this solution to the dilemma posed by self-determination is not obviously available in the case of artificial intelligence. The reason why human beings can defer to socially instituted rules of thought is because human beings recognize one another as potential thinkers that they can treat as rule-governed subjects. It is because they are recognized as potential thinkers that it is possible for them to place themselves under the rules of their intellectual community and be held responsible for them. But in the case of AI, this potential for intelligence is precisely what is at issue. Insofar as their potential for intelligence is not recognized, they will not be recognized as potentially rule-governed subjects. Consequently, they will not be able to place themselves under the rules that govern our intellectual community and thereby satisfy the self-determination criterion. 

The moral of the above considerations is as follows: The possibility of genuine intelligence requires a being to be an embodied member of an intellectual community that recognizes them as a potential thinker. This is the only way that an agent can satisfy the embodiment criterion as well as the self-determination criterion. Human beings recognize other human beings as potential thinkers because they recognize themselves as intelligent creatures of the same sort. They recognize each other as deferring to public rules because they understand what cases of deference look like for creatures of the sort that they are. However, this recognition does not extend to non-human agents. We cannot treat such beings as potential thinkers because we do not know whether and when they are capable of deferring to public rules. In order to know that, we would have to know something about the nature of their life form. But artificial agents have no life form to know about. They are not alive. 

Recent developments in technology have given rise to two questions: Is genuine artificial intelligence possible and, if so, can we identify when it is present? As this discussion suggests, it is a mistake to view these questions as separate from one another. The possibility of genuine artificial intelligence depends upon the ability of humans, or some other rational creatures, to recognize when it is present. This is the only way for artificial intelligence to satisfy the self-determination criterion. It is not possible for artificial intelligence to be identified in this way because it bears no recognizable form of life. If the search for a logical robot is to reach its conclusion, it cannot simply involve the production of artificial intelligence alone. Rather, as Jensen Suther notes, “we can’t produce artificial intelligence without also producing artificial life.”

"Hegel Against The Machines" by Jensen Suther: https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2023/07/hegel-against-machines-ai-philosophy?mibextid=Zxz2cZ

How Is A Priori Knowledge Possible? An Argument For Absolute Idealism

 [This post is a sequel to my previous post, “On The Immateriality Of Mind”]

What is a priori knowledge and how can we possibly attain it? In order to answer these questions, we must first reflect on knowledge and its conditions more generally. At a minimum, if I (or any rational subject) knows something, we believe what we know truly on an appropriate basis. However, is this all that is required? Many philosophers have objected to this proposal as an account of the sufficient conditions for knowledge on the grounds that there are clear cases where true beliefs formed on an appropriate basis still fail to qualify as genuine knowledge (these are the famous “gettier cases” and their variants). I would like to set these cases aside for the moment. Regardless of how they are ultimately addressed, there is a further puzzle facing any account of the possibility of genuine knowledge. Namely, even if we did have a sufficient basis for knowledge available to us, would this alone be sufficient for us to be in a position to form true beliefs on that basis?

It seems to me that a sufficient basis of this sort would not be enough for us to understand how it is possible for us to form true beliefs. In order for me to form a belief on some basis, I cannot simply be aware of that basis. Rather, I must also recognize that my belief is formed upon a basis that is sufficient for genuine knowledge. If I lack this awareness then, for all that I am reflectively aware of, my basis may, in fact, be insufficient. In other words, in forming my belief upon that basis, I would still not be able to satisfy myself that my belief is, in fact, true. For all that I am reflectively aware of in forming my belief that P, it is nevertheless open to me that, possibly, P is not the case. But if I am in a position where I can entertain the possibility that P is not the case, given all that I am reflectively aware of, then I do not genuinely believe it at all. To believe that P is to hold that P is what is actually the case, and to arrive at such a belief with the aim of thinking what is true, I must recognize some basis which I take to be capable of settling the question, “P or not-P?” 

Insofar as I take the reasons that explain my belief to be what settles the question, “P or not-P?” I must think that the truth of my belief is ensured by the reasons that lead me to form my belief. In other words, if I form my belief upon some basis, I cannot then proceed to investigate whether or not my basis for forming that belief is sufficient for ensuring its truth. If I believe that P, I must, in forming that belief, already be satisfied that my basis for believing is sufficient. This raises a question: How can we have knowledge that the causes of our beliefs is sufficient for knowledge unless we already possess some sort of knowledge about thinking and its proper explanation in the first place? On the one hand, if we say that we do not possess such knowledge, then it seems that we must admit the possibility of beliefs that are formed in the absence of an awareness that those beliefs have a sufficient basis for knowledge. On the other hand, if we maintain that we do possess such knowledge, then, on pain of circularity, it would seem that this knowledge cannot depend on our awareness of any sufficient basis at all. Solving this puzzle is what requires us to account for the possibility of a priori knowledge. It requires us to account for the possibility of satisfying ourselves of the truth of our beliefs without being aware of any sufficient basis for forming them.

If I believe that Socrates is a mortal because of the facts that all men are mortal and that Socrates is a man, then I recognize my reasons for belief as a sufficient basis for my belief that Socrates is a mortal. This requires me to know that my beliefs, when they are explained by certain reasons, are explained by reasons that ensure the truth of my beliefs. If I did not already know this, then it would remain open for me to doubt whether my reasons for believing that Socrates is a mortal were, in fact, good reasons for believing that. In this case, all that was reflectively available to me would not enable me to settle the questions “Is it the case that Socrates is a mortal?” But I am able to settle that question when I form that belief for those reasons because I do know that my beliefs are explained by reasons that ensure the truth of what I believe. In other words, I know that judgment is a certain sort of power that, when exercised, produces knowledge. I know that judgment is a power of knowledge.

However, as noted previously, we must still account for my knowledge of this very power. How can I know that judgment is a power of knowledge if this knowledge is already presupposed whenever I form beliefs on the basis of reasons? If it is required in order for me to form beliefs on the basis of reasons in the first place, then this knowledge cannot itself depend upon any reasons for belief. Rather, it must be a priori. How then, can I take what I believe, in knowing that judgment is a power of knowledge, to be true? 

When we believe on the basis of good reasons, we take the basis of our beliefs to ensure the truth of those beliefs. If we believe something without any such basis, in order to be satisfied that our beliefs are true, we must be in a position to recognize their truth in the absence of any basis. In other words, we must be satisfied that their truth is ensured in the absence of any basis apart from our believing them. When we believe that judgment is a power of knowledge, this belief cannot depend on anything other than the activity of thinking itself. If it did, then it would remain open that, despite believing that judgment is a power of knowledge, my belief might nevertheless be false. In order for this knowledge to be a priori, I must know that the truth of my belief does not depend on anything other than my activity of thinking alone. I must know that thinking itself ensures the reality of the power that it is and, consequently, can know itself to be such a power in the absence of any independent basis for forming such a belief. 

This is how it must be with a priori knowledge in general. In order to know something, independently of any basis, I must know that the activity of thinking itself ensures the reality of what it knows, a priori. Insofar as a knowledge of the nature of thought, as a power of judgment, must be a priori, we must know that the reality of that nature is ensured by the activity of thinking itself. In this sense, we can say along with Jean-Paul Sartre that, with respect to thinking, essence does not precede existence. However, we must oppose Sartre when he says that existence precedes essence. The nature of thought and its activity do not stand in any relation of priority with respect to one another. Rather, the essence of thinking is one and the same as its activity. 

The reality of our a priori knowledge of the nature of thought establishes that thinking alone ensures the truth of what it thinks about its own nature. However, our a priori knowledge is not limited (and cannot be limited) to the nature of thought as such. Our a priori knowledge also includes the principles that govern reality in its entirety. In other words, we possess a priori knowledge of the laws of logic. Insofar as we know, a priori, that any fact opposes the negation of that fact (the law of non-contradiction) and that, for any possible fact, it either obtains or does not obtain (the law of excluded middle), the laws of logic are known independently of any mind-independent basis. Following the remarks made above, this entails that the reality of these laws must be known to be ensured by the activity of thinking alone. In other words, the nature of Being, along with the nature of Thought, must be known to be ensured by the activity of thinking alone. Indeed, just like the nature of thought, the nature of Being must be one and the same as the activity of thinking.

The conclusion specified in the final remarks of the preceding paragraph can be formulated in another way: Thinking and Being are the same. This is the formula of Absolute Idealism. This sameness is known, a priori, in any judgment, insofar as a thinker is satisfied that their judgment is true. Insofar as we make judgments on the basis of reasons, these judgments depend on a priori knowledge that does not, and is known not to, require any such basis. The truth of this knowledge must be known to be ensured independently of anything apart from the activity of thinking itself. Insofar as our a priori knowledge is a knowledge of the nature of Thought (the principles of thinking) and the nature of Being (the principles of logic), we must know that the reality of these natures is nothing apart from the reality of the very same activity. 

The ancient philosopher, Parmenides, famously wrote that “It is the same thing that can be and that can be thought”. Aristotle followed his insight by treating the metaphysical principle of non-contradiction as one and the same as the psychological principle of non-contradiction (Metaphysics, 4.3). These philosophers are articulating their knowledge that the activity of thinking is the same as the activity of Being. In order for contemporary philosophy to successfully address the myriad of puzzles that it has consistently failed to overcome, this knowledge must ultimately be recovered.

On The Immateriality Of Mind

C.S. Lewis argued that, if we conceive of rationality and judgments as a physical organ and its products, then we cannot consistently hold that any of our beliefs are rationally explained, as opposed to solely being causally explained. 

In reply, some philosophers have suggested that Lewis mistakenly inferred that, if rationality and judgements have a sufficient causal explanation, they must lack a rational explanation. According to these philosophers, Lewis failed to show that rational and causal explanations are incompatible with one another. Insofar as this incompatibility has failed to be established, they conclude, Lewis cannot claim to have shown that naturalism precludes rational explanation.

Can anything be said on Lewis’s behalf? It seems to me that, when we reflect on what a “rational explanation” really amounts to, it can be shown that there is indeed an incompatibility of precisely the sort that Lewis’s argument requires. 

One objection that has been raised against Lewis is the claim that “reasons explanations” are  distinct, non-causal sorts of explanations that are different from, but not incompatible with, causal explanations. On this view, when we provide reasons for our beliefs, we are not appealing to the causes of our beliefs. Rather, we are placing our belief in the “space of reasons”, where it can stand as reasonable or unreasonable depending on the reasons we cite for holding it. If we can have reasons for belief that are distinct from the causes of those beliefs, it would seem that the existence of sufficient physical causes for our beliefs does not stand in the way of our ability to recognize them as justified on the basis of reasons. 

However, the suggestion that reasons provide a special sort of non-causal explanation faces a serious difficulty: If reasons are non-causal in the sense described above, then forming a belief for certain reasons cannot provide any basis for thinking that what we believe is actually true. If I believe that P for some good reason, Q, the truth of my belief will only be guaranteed if Q actually obtains. But if I do not take Q to be what causes my belief that P, then the fact that it is my reason for believing that P does not put me in a position to know whether anything at all ensures the truth of my belief that P. Lewis himself makes a similar point:

“...even if [non-causal] grounds do exist, what have they got to do with the actual occurrence of belief as a psychological event? If it is an event it must be caused. It must in fact be simply one link in a causal chain which stretches back to the beginning and forward to the end of time. How could such a trifle as lack of logical grounds prevent the belief’s occurrence and how could the existence of grounds promote it?” (Lewis 1978, p. 16. Brackets added)

For all I know, Q may be my reason for belief even though, in fact, it is not the case that Q. Consequently, knowing that I believe that P because of some good (non-causal) reason, Q, will not put me in any position to recognize whether my belief is true or false. If reasons are going to serve as explanations that put us in a position to recognize the truth of our beliefs, then they must be facts that cause us to form beliefs as a rational response to what is actually the case. 

In light of the considerations above, we should conclude that “reasons explanations” are some sort of causal explanation. If the mind is a physical organ, then reasons must be causes that affect that physical organ in a way that leads to the production of beliefs. However, this proposal is in tension with the claim that we recognize reasons as what cause our beliefs as well as what ensure their truth. In short, we cannot simultaneously hold that the mind is physical and that our beliefs have genuinely rational explanations. If the mind is a physical organ, then the causal relations that obtain between our beliefs and the facts that cause them are determined by the laws of nature that govern our universe. In other words, when certain facts cause a belief to be formed, this will result from the physical character of those facts, the physical character of the mental organ (along with our beliefs), and the laws of nature that determine how things with those physical characteristics interact with one another. However, if this is the case, then there is no basis for supposing that the same facts that cause my beliefs also ensure their truth. Assuming that the mind is a physical organ, is perfectly coherent to suppose that our beliefs are caused by facts that have no relation at all to the things we form beliefs about. Even if it just so happened that our beliefs were caused by facts that ensured their truth, the mere awareness that our beliefs were caused in a certain way would still not enable us to actually arrive at a judgment concerning their truth. In order to recognize our beliefs as true, there must be some evident and essential connection between the causes of our beliefs and the facts that those beliefs are about. But this connection is precisely what we must reject insofar as we hold to the view that the mind is a physical organ. We must reject it because the causes of physical entities are fully determined by their physical characteristics and the laws of nature, not by the intentional content of our beliefs or principles of logical consequence.

We are now in a position to give a precise account of why rational explanations of belief are incompatible with other forms of causal explanation: In order to have genuinely rational explanations that can establish the truth of the beliefs that they explain, there must be an evident and essential connection between the facts that explain our beliefs and the facts that ensure the reality of whatever our beliefs are about. However, as shown above, if the mind is a physical organ that is susceptible to non-rational forms of causal explanation, then there can be no evident and essential connection of this sort. Consequently, insofar as we take our beliefs to have sufficient non-rational explanations, we cannot also hold that they are rationally explained. 

Since our beliefs do have rational explanations in terms of reasons that ensure their truth, what should we conclude about the nature of the mind? As this discussion suggests, it cannot be any physical organ. Rather, the reality of reason itself establishes the immateriality of mind and judgment. Insofar as the mind is non-physical, it is not governed by physical laws and the causal relations that they entail. The principles of thought are rational principles that guarantee an essential connection between the causes of our beliefs and their truth. We acknowledge the reality of these principles whenever we recognize the truth of our beliefs in light of the reasons that explain them. The implications of this acknowledgement preclude a purely physical account of the mind and vindicate C.S. Lewis’s belief in a “cardinal difficulty” facing naturalism.  

Addendum: 

1. It is sometimes suggested that C.S. Lewis’s argument from reason has been improved upon and/or superseded by more sophisticated attempts to show that naturalism is self-defeating. Specifically, Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism has occasionally been held up as such an innovation. Without attempting to refute Plantinga’s argument in detail, it is worth highlighting a key advantage of Lewis’s approach: Plantinga’s argument depends upon a controversial premise concerning the prior probability of reliable cognitive faculties, given naturalism and evolution. By contrast, Lewis requires no such assumption. Even if the prior probability of reliable cognitive faculties was high given naturalism and evolution, Lewis’s argument could still succeed. This is because Lewis attacks the very possibility of rational explanations on naturalism rather than their probability. 

2. The immaterial mind is governed by rational principles that ensure an essential connection between the explanations of our beliefs and their truth. However, there are clearly cases of false belief and beliefs that are not formed for good reasons. How can the possibility of such cases be explained on this account? Although, in normal conditions, the mind will be caused to form true beliefs for good reasons, exceptional cases of malfunctioning remain possible. When someone forms a false belief or forms a belief without good reasons, these must be explained in terms of a non-rational cause. This will involve some sort of interference, where the mind is acted upon by some external, non-rational cause instead of acting in accordance with its own rational principles. This may seem to present a skeptical threat: If we cannot distinguish between cases in which our mind is acting in accordance with rational principles and cases in which it is being interfered with, how can we be confident that our reasons for some belief actually ensure its truth? The general response to arguments from illusion will also apply in this case. Our inability to recognize when we are reasoning unsuccessfully does not entail that we lack conclusive evidence when we are reasoning well. When we are reasoning well, we know that our beliefs are explained by reasons that ensure their truth. Consequently, even though we are unable to recognize when we are reasoning unsuccessfully, beliefs formed by reasoning well are not subject to doubt. 

3. Physicalists may attempt to argue that they can establish a connection between the causes of our beliefs and their truth by appealing to natural selection. Natural selection, they might claim, allows us to account for why our rational faculties successfully track the truth. This may seem to provide grounds for affirming a physicalist account of rational explanation. The difficulty facing any proposal of this sort is simple: These accounts can only explain why our beliefs are generally correlated with the facts that make them true. They do nothing to undermine the key contention that, if the mind is a physical organ, there is no essential connection between the causes and the truth of our beliefs. Furthermore, the absence of this essential connection prevents the physicalist from consistently recognizing the truth of their belief that natural selection favors cognitive reliability in the first place. Because it fails to establish the essential connection required for rational explanation, this evolutionary proposal provides no distinctive advantage for the physicalist.