Similarities Between William Lycan And John Searle

William Lycan and John Searle both have different views about the possibility of Artificial Intelligence which they disagree on. Artificial Intelligence is the science of designing machines to perform tasks that humans usually do that require intelligence. The only common belief the two philosophers have is that they believe the only thing that is relevant or even exist is physical properties. Lycan believes we can build a computer that is literally a human mind, and claims that the mind, which is nothing more than a physical entity, is important due to its functions and what it’s capable of doing other than what it is created from. His strongest argument is based on the experiment about Harry, which whom looks like a human-being but is actually a sort of robot. Because of this, William Lycan asks questions such as if the creature is a person, if he has thoughts or feelings, and if he is conscious. Lycan questions our teachings of consciousness to better explain Harry’s, and claims that the best way to understand the consciousness of a thing or person is by observing its behavior. To show how artificial intelligence could possibly exist would be to believe that Harry has the same behaviors and actions that humans have, which makes him just as intelligent as a human. We register information through our receptors, we then store and manage the

Searle’s beliefs are that strong artificial intelligence do not exist and that computers work off what was programmed into them. Searle defends this view by using the Chinese Room example, proving that computers only give out what they’ve already received. The Chinese Room analogy is a man sitting in a room being given a rulebook and dictionary and must translate Chinese messages and answer them which the man can do just like a computer. But the man was simply just manipulating symbols rather than truly understanding the messages or language in the