Preprogrammed humans have psychological states
If determinism is true, then humans are programmed by nature and yet have psychological states. Thus, if determinism is true, we have a counterexample to claim that programmed entities can have psychological states.
The Smart argument

"Paul Ziff, discussing robots (Analysis, January 1959, pp. 64-68), gives a number of reasons why it is not to be said that they feel tired and so on. I shall urge that his reasons would not persuade a determinist, except insofar as he is bringing out this point: that his robots do not feel because they do not have proper bodies. I shall then argue that this does not help much to see why certain artifacts do not feel. One does not, of course, need to be a determinist; but if one is not, and unless unrealistically one is going to compartmentalize human beings, the reasons why human beings feel tired and robots do not must go much deeper. I shall not deal with all Ziff's reasons, but will concentrate on certain of them to be found in Section 9 of his article, which I take to be crucial. Robots, he argues do not feel because:--

1. "The way a robot acts (in a specified context) depends primarily on how we programed it to act." For the sake of simplicity I introduce the notion of Nature to represent the sum of causes going towards the creation of a human being considered as beginning with conception or at any later time in his life. What is wrong, for the determinist, in saying that the way a man acts, in a specified context, depends primarily on how nature programs him to act? Subtle programs, of course; much subtler than computer programs, but the subtle cell circuits still determine the way I act, given a situation"

(N. Smart, 1959, p. 107).

Reference

Smart, Ninian. 1959. Professor Ziff on Robots. Analysis, Vol. XIX, No. 3. Reprinted in Minds and Machines (1964). Alan Ross (Ed.), pp. 106-8.
Λεπτομέρειες πλοηγού
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Artificial Intelligence »Artificial Intelligence
Can computers think? [1] »Can computers think? [1]
No: computers can't have free will »No: computers can't have free will
Computers only exhibit the free will of programmers »Computers only exhibit the free will of programmers
Preprogrammed robots have no psychological states »Preprogrammed robots have no psychological states
Preprogrammed humans have psychological states
Humans are programmed »Humans are programmed
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