Artificial intelligence (AI) has developed rapidly over the past few years. We have computers, phones and other hardware that can now display abilities and intelligence that makes humans look primitive. With this fast-moving area of technology many are postulating that AI can become conscious, and the implications are that it undermines religious narratives. If AI can be conscious then there is a physicalist explanation for what makes us human.1 The concept of the soul in Islam, referred to as the rūḥ in Arabic, is something that we have little revealed knowledge about.

If you follow my content, you know I'm fascinated with Philosophy of Mind. In this blog, I want to just briefly summarize a thought experiment that was imagined by a renowned philosopher, John Searle. It's likely one of the first items you will read about in this subcategory of philosophy. It was crafted to be an answer to a group of people known as functionalists who hold that if something exhibits the same behaviours or functions of a conscious organism, for all intents and purposes, that thing can be called conscious. The argument has also been cited as a useful answer to determinists and materialists.

"The biology of mind bridges the sciences -- concerned with the natural world -- and the humanities -- concerned with the meaning of human experience." Welcome to Part 3 of this new series exploring artificial general intelligence (AGI). If you missed Part 1 or Part 2, check them out; part 1 covers what AGI is, and part 2 is a brief overview of cognitive science for AI folk. This week we will introduce important concepts in philosophy of mind that I think every computer scientist, AI/ML researcher, or AGI enthusiast should know. The concept of minds--their nature, their implementation, their applications, etc.--are of huge interests to AGI researchers, and even anyone remotely interested in AI; arguably, this is the entire job of an AI/AGI researcher: creating artificial minds (some are just more narrow then others).

"The biology of mind bridges the sciences -- concerned with the natural world -- and the humanities -- concerned with the meaning of human experience." Welcome to Part 3 of this new series exploring artificial general intelligence (AGI). If you missed Part 1 or Part 2, check them out; part 1 covers what AGI is, and part 2 is a brief overview of cognitive science for AI folk. This week we will introduce important concepts in philosophy of mind that I think every computer scientist, AI/ML researcher, or AGI enthusiast should know. The concept of minds--their nature, their implementation, their applications, etc.--are of huge interests to AGI researchers, and even anyone remotely interested in AI; arguably, this is the entire job of an AI/AGI researcher: creating artificial minds (some are just more narrow then others).

Communication has been an essential part of human evolution. Communication enabled us to form groups, make tactics, plan ahead and essentially survive the wild. So, the importance of communication cannot be ruled out. It was only natural that humans would want to introduce such communicating abilities into the machines they made. With the advancements in A.I., each next generation of the system could hold up a longer conversation with humans than the previous system.