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Québec Studies in the Philosophy of Science pp 63–80Cite as

Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Life, and the Symbol-Matter Problem

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Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science ((BSPS,volume 178))

Abstract

What is the relation between matter and form? This question is of course as old as philosophy itself. But it also arises at the foundations of two recent scientific endeavours — the computational approach to the mind-brain in cognitive science and artificial intelligence (AI), and the synthetic approach to living systems in theoretical biology and artificial life (AL). In these fields the question arises primarily in connection with the status of symbols, that is, items that are physically realized, formally identified, and semantically interpretable.

Earlier versions of this essay were presented to a symposium on Connectionism at the 1992 meeting of the Canadian Philosophical Association and to the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. The thoughts expressed here have also benefited greatly from conversations with Kenneth Cheung, Ronald de Sousa, Paul Thompson, Sonia Sedivy, and Francisco Varela

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Notes

  1. See Stephen Harnad, ‘The Symbol Grounding Problem’, in Stephanie Forrest, ed., Emergent Computation (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press/A Bradford Book, 1991), pp. 335–346.

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  3. The term ‘Strong AI’ was coined by John Searle who opposes the view. See his ‘Minds, Brains, and Programs’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (1980): 417–458.

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  1. Evan Thompson

    Present address: Boston University, USA

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  1. Concordia University, Canada

    Evan Thompson

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  1. Evan Thompson
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Ottawa, Canada

    Mathieu Marion

  2. Boston University, USA

    Robert S. Cohen

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© 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Thompson, E. (1996). Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Life, and the Symbol-Matter Problem. In: Marion, M., Cohen, R.S. (eds) Québec Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 178. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0113-1_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0113-1_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-6537-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-0113-1

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