Dennett's Determination of Rational System Essay

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Dennett's determination of the organization of a rational system surrounds the predictive behaviors of "believes" and "desires" to make a paradigm for international behavior. Rationality, for Dennett, is an intentional stance, meaning predictions made from rationality are also international. The behavior is predictable because of information that directs certain goals. "It is a small step to calling the information possessed the computer's beliefs, its goals and sub-goals its desires" (Dennett, 1971, p. 90). This is an example of a larger extrapolation of our treating an object rationally when we need to predict its behavior. We assign desires and then predict a rational course of action for the object or stance.

Question 2

For Dennett, we are unable to analyze our introspective experience because we cannot reliably conceptualize things that only we have access to. If we take experiences and conceptualize them, we imply that there may be alternative answers that we can compare over time and notion, which is a methodological problem. Dennett's response to the methodological problem is that one can always refuse to adopt the Intentional stance, or switch and redesign the stance. This would akin to manipulating the methodological problem to align more with the overall empirical truth of the issue (Dennett, p. 91-2).

Question 3

Dennett's design stance implies that one knows exactly how the object is designed and programmed, thus making it easier to predict its response by following the computational instructions for the program. In non-programmable objects, we use function (or purpose) as the programming of the system. This proposes to breaking up the larger portion of the issue into smaller components that allow a prediction to be made about behavior. For the methodological problem, the design stance assumes each small part is related synergistically to a larger part, which can then be teleological analyzed in order to predict behavior (Dennett, p. 88).

Question 4

When Dennett adopts the physical stance, he changes the issue surrounding the methodological problem in order to organize complex issues in a more convenient, yet substantive manner. There is a clear juxtaposition between the Intentional and the physical, yet at times the physical stance causes us to doubt. As a solution to the methodological problem, the issue becomes one of prediction, "One must similarly cease talking of belief and descend to the design stance or physical stance" (Dennett, p.106).

Question 5

The ontological argument is a category of philosophical views on the existence of "what is." Of course, there is no consensus for this argument, or for the basic issues of methodology, which go back to at least the Middle Ages, and likely Ancient Greece and Rome. In its most basic terms, ontological methodology follows the problem of whether there is a God, or a Universal Truth. Methodologically, there are problems because it is not clear how to approach the answer to such an infinite question, as well as it is not completely clear what the exact questions must be in order to get a satisfactory proof.

Dennett concludes that methodology might be a general impediment to solving the truth about a number of basic questions. Consciousness may not be epistemologically definable in all manners, but if we use three levels of abstraction, we can come closer to a "method" of working through the ontological problem: physicalness, design, and intention.

The most concrete idea is the physical stance -- the proof of things physical and observable, even with sophisticated instruments. The physicalness looks at mass, energy, velocity, composition and then predicts behavior based on current behavior. Assumptions are based on what we know about the properties or nature of the object through past knowledge or past measurement (by ourselves or by others, accessed by the individual) (Dennett, p. 88). Once we establish the physical as an initial methodology, we move towards design. Design asks about purpose and function, even as far as to find the "good and bad" within the way the object was designed. For instance, using this stance to ask about flight, we may study birds in order to understand how the design function of the wing allows flight. We then take that knowledge and apply it to our own creations and, over time, the design function we observed becomes a physical issue in our building of aircraft (Dennett, pp. 88-9). Finally, the least tactical stance is intention. Intention is part of consciousness, and therefore cannot be completely explained. It focuses on abstract issues like belief, thinking, pondering, judging -- and then intent.

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We now know that the wing of a bird is functionally design for flight; we know that birds fly; but intentionally, we suppose that the bird is flying to find food, out of fear, or out of habit (migration, etc.) (Dennett, pp. 90-1).

From a methodological stance, we might think of this as a pyramid, similar to Benjamin Bloom's taxonomy. At the bottom of the period are facts or knowledge. This is the foundation of methodology, and a way Dennett tells us to "ascribe belief and desires" (p.91). Moving upward from knowledge is the ability to understand, describe and explain. Once this is done, we are now applying and analyzing, or looking at function and the manner in which synergism exists in the object. Finally, we move to the highest stages of the pyramid, the abstract skills of evaluation and finally creation, which are all part of intention -- but clearly must have the former issues before intention can become reasonable for "an Intentional system is the assumption that it is rational" (Dennett, p. 95).

However, the migration from knowledge to creation, or from physicalness to intention is, according to Dennett, forced upon us when we discover that our subjects are imperfectly rational -- that is, sometimes unpredictable. Dennett notes that there are perfectly rational systems (p. 95), but does not dismiss the concept of belief and desire in that systems vary -- they evolve, they morph and interact with other systems, and thus are not always logical consequences (depending on point-of-view), but are nevertheless true. Without this hierarchy, then, "one must similarly cease talking of belief and descend to the design stance or physical stance for one's account" (Dennett, p. 106).

Question 6

In its most basic form, Dennett sees a computer and a human as both machines of a kind. Dennett's view is that a computer is a system based on human intervention, a many "stance" system. The goal of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is to allow a mechanical object to evolve consciousness -- to be able to integrate, learn, and "think" about issues that are not coded or binary in nature. If we use an epistemological approach to the issue of AI, we can surmise that analytical epistemology and AI are rather complementary to each other. Epistemology as a discipline is concerned with addressing knowledge: What is knowledge? How is knowledge acquired? How can we know what we know and is that knowledge transferable? In this sense, since epistemology deals with acquisition of knowledge, the general questions when judging another being or organism are: 1) What is the difference between experience and knowledge? 2) How does experience and synthesis of knowledge prove something? 3) What is rational and how do we determine that? 4) How do we distinguish what is real from what is observed or believed?

For Dennett, it is not necessarily the actual reality of making an AI robot, but of the proof of the concept -- the deontological argument that it is the means that are more important than the result. Humans should learn by understanding the function of the issues, the programming, the basic knowledge, but may be unable to take the machine to the intentional stage. Dennett sees that the AI concept can be extrapolated to the design stage -- the programming of the system (p. 87). At this stage, innumerable possibilities are programmed, allowing for several "different levels of abstraction, depending on whether one's design treats us as smallest functional elements strategy-generators and consequence -- testers… or transistors and switches" (p. 88). The physical nature of this AI computer has millions of critical variables that are overwhelming, but do allow us to form a basis for analysis (p.89). Then, according to Dennett, we must move towards the quantum level because we cannot predict functionality and rationality for a machine based on past-performance; our "predictions made on these assumptions may well fail if [any] assumption proves true" (p. 89).

Dennett does not moralize in this article about the nature of the AI "being." Rather, it is through the attempt at understanding consciousness through predictive technology that we learn more about what it means to be human, and how that humanity is related to function (biology, chemistry) or basic construction. For a computer to become intelligent, it must move from acting solely on programming facts to make decisions based on intuition (intent from past-experience combined with new stimuli). Dennett does not, however, believe that.....

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