Philosophy of Mind

The philosophy of mind is a fascinating area where philosophy has some link with the real world. There are not many divisions of philosophy where this can be said: some parts of morals and ethics (medical ethics, for example), philosophy of physics (although whether physics links with the real world any more is a question in itself) and, occasionally, political philosophy.

But philosophy of mind was always more interesting for me, partly because it addresses the "human condition" and partly because it is so closely connected with the (badly named) area of artificial intelligence.

Anyway, there are two experiments in hypertext here, both (long) essays I produced while at university. The first, 15,000 words, was written for my finals in 1993. The second is longer, 30,000 words, and more up-to-date; I wrote it for my post-graduate BPhil in 1995. This one is also much more interesting, but not for the non-philosopher.

Could a Machine Think? (hypertext version or download postscript for printing)

Mind, Brain and Program

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