You have only one, relatively short reading for next time, but it
deals with a difficult and somewhat slippery philosophical topic: intentionality. (Intentionality, in a philosophical sense, must be carefully distinguished from ordinary “intention,” as when we say that we intend
to do something or other. They are not unrelated, but they are
not the same either.) There is a long article on intentionality
in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, but I expect it goes
into more detail than you need. (But don’t let me discourage you
from reading it if you are interested.) Unfortunately the entries
in the online philosophy dictionaries (that I have seen) are quite
brief, and probably less informative than the remarks I’ll make here.
The notion of intentionality is critical to the distinction between
“real minds” and “simulated minds” (or between “real thinking” and
“simulated thinking”). This is because something has intentionality
when it is about something else, that is, when it has content
or meaning. Mental states such as beliefs, desires, fears, hopes,
doubts, memories, anticipations, and so forth are all about
something else. (We believe that … We hope that … We
remember that …) Therefore these are all intentional mental
states. Consciousness, too, has intentionality, because
consciousness is always consciousness of something (so, it is asserted, you can’t be simply conscious; you are always conscious that … or conscious of …, even if you don’t put it into words.) Consciousness is inseparable from the content of consciousness.
Of course, other things besides mental states have intentionality or
“aboutness.” Your biology textbook is about biology, your student
records are about your academic performance here, your emails are about
AI or your dinner plans or whatever. But there is a
difference. The statement:
(S) “George Gordon, Lord Byron was the father of Augusta Ada, Countess of Lovelace.”
is certainly about something; it has meaning; it has
intentionality. But it is said to have only “derived
intentionality,” because its meaning derives from the original
intentionality of my knowledge or belief that Lord Byron is the father
of Ada; when you read and understand the statement (S), it also has
original intentionality for you (because you believe it, doubt it,
consider it, or whatever). In my mind or your mind the
proposition expressed by (S) has original intentionality (as a belief,
doubt, hope, etc.), but on a piece of paper or a computer screen
statement (S) has at most derived intentionality. If I store the
sentence (S) in a computer database, I can hardly say that the computer
believes that Lord Byron is Ada’s father, or that (S) means that to the computer; nor can I legitimately say that UT’s student information system knows your academic history.
Therefore original intentionality is considered a distinctive
characteristic of genuine mental states, and a fundamental question in
the philosophy of AI is: Can a computer’s internal states have original
intentionality? Is it possible for a computer to genuinely believe (or doubt, or consider, …) the information in its knowledge base, or does it simply act like it does so? This is the issue that Daniel Dennett addresses in his article.
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