Philosophy of Technology

  (out of 5 stars)

David McFarland, someone well-versed in biological robots and zoology, offers up this quick philosophical (not technical) discussion of just how we go about identifying 'alien' minds. 'Alien' here refers to non-human minds, not the ET variety, specifically those of animals and robots. He assumes as fundamental the need to identify both rationality and subjectivity in an 'other' before we could ascribe to it a mind. Most of the book involves dealing with the numerous and convoluted problems associated with those identifications.

To move his ideas along, McFarland uses his dog Border as the animal example, and a conceptual security robot for the other. Throughout the early parts of the book, the reader gets an intro to 'mindless machines' and the role design plays in both animals (through natural selection, environment, etc) and robots (engineer, programmer, etc).

The bulk of the book involves traditional philosophical considerations of intent, functionality, rationality, subjectivity, feelings, knowledge, and mind. Much of this discussion will be familiar to readers of Daniel Dennett (and Dennett is frequently referenced) and/or general philosophy of mind. There are some interesting applications of these concepts to robots (especially), but I'd advise the novice philosophy reader to find a quiet room and have an optimal mind set before proceding through the middle sections (as I would advise on any good philosophy book).

Toward the end, the reader gets stronger discussions of mind as they may (or may not apply) to robots and animals. Many of the contradictions are pointed out, as well as the inherent difficulty (impossibility?) of determining the mind, mind set, or subjectivity of anything which might house them.

The end of the book falls off the truck, unfortunately. Throughout the chapters, McFarland clearly appears to be laying groundwork for his conclusions (and yes, I use this word in the philosophical not empirical sense), only to turn in a 'hedging all bets' card in the epilogue without any real opinion. He offers what may be possible, states that philosophers are all in disagreement, and proposes weakly that its basically up to the reader to determine what is going on inside that skull/robot. I recognize (both from reading this book and previous knowledge of many of the subjects) that a conclusion of any sort would not be likely in strong empirical terms, but at least McFarland should have let the reader know this was an exploration without an actual purpose other than to discuss the issues (does the Intentional Stance come into play here in his narrative?). I never expected McFarland to state whether he thought his dog had a mind, but he presented enough points of view that I expected him to accept one at some point. He never did. It was all one big lecture for the reader (enjoyable though it was).

The strongest points for me were his determination that mind and consciousness were just as much products of evolution and purpose (or for the robot, design and purpose) as any other phenotypic effect. His one strong conclusion was that we cannot expect an animal or a robot to ever have a mind or consciousness like ours. They don't have human brains, haven't been selected (or designed) under the same conditions, and therefore, if they have minds at all, those minds would conform to the specific needs and conditions of their respective developments.

Guilty Robots was worth the read, and with a stronger finish this would have been a four-star review. However, the weak ending, the progressing obscurity of our main characters (security robot, Border), and a reader-must-decide 'conclusion' somewhat spoiled an otherwise solid effort (but not enough to render it a waste of time). Three and one-half stars.