Philosophy of Mind
Introduction Dualism Behaviourism Identity Theory Functionalism Dennett

Functionalism:

 
 
 
  Multiple Realisability
 
  The Turing Test
 
 
  Zombies and the Chinese Nation
  Summary
  Further Reading


  Strong and Weak AI
 

Artificial Intelligence (or AI) is the concept that it is possible for a machine to "think". I say "think" (in speech marks) because it is debatable whether it is possible for a computer to think in the same sense as humans do.

The two main varieties of AI are called "strong" and "weak". Strong AI argues that it is possible that one day a computer will be invented which can be called a mind in the fullest sense of the word. In other words, it can think, reason, imagine, etc., and do all the things that we currently associate with the human brain. Weak AI, on the other hand, argues that computers can only appear to think and are not actually conscious in the same way as human brains are.