The ideal of artificial intelligence can firstly be set as the ability of a mechanical (or
electronic) agent to be able to, as a human, observe, reason, learn, communicate and act in
complex environments and secondly, to explain this type of behaviour in humans, animals or
any other type of agent. The aim of this study is firstly to determine whether this ideal is
feasible and secondly, to look at the physicalist premise thereof, viz., everything is physical
according to Dooyeweerd’s view of the creation, fall and redemption motive.
First we determine the essence of artificial intelligence through the Curch–Turing thesis. We
then place the essence of artificial intelligence alongside the essence of life firstly to see
whether the construction of an artificial intelligence agent is possible and whether the subject
artificial intelligence has something to say regarding intelligent behaviour in humans, animals
and similar agents. Lastly we look at the physicalist premise of artificial intelligence viz.,
everything is physical from the reformative creation, fall and redemption motive.
The Church–Turing thesis forms the boundary of what is feasible in artificial intelligence and
what is not feasible. Every component of the thesis is limited to the arithmetic law sphere of
Being, i.e. the succession of discrete elements in a set of elements. Any effort to reduce the
spatial aspect of the being to the arithmetic aspect of Being, like the enumeration of irrational
numbers, ends in an antinomy. Any artificial intelligence agent is in its nature limited to the
arithmetic law sphere of Being. The structural intertwinement, which such an artificial
intelligence agent has with its underlying physical components is, in contrast with living
organisms that of an irreversible grounded enkapsis. Life and mind has, in contrast to the
arithmetic seclusion of an artificial intelligence agent, a fullness and totality. It has an ability
to unlock Being in its fullness, which comes to the fore in a way that any living organism
unlocks the plastic horizon of Being in the respective internal and phenomenological
horizons. The unlocking of the spatial aspect plays a key role with its kernel of totality,
simultaneity and continuousness. In both these horizons, the organism is in a living enkapsis
with both its underlying physical substrate and the physical things in its external
surroundings. The ideal of artificial intelligence is thus a phantasm. The only comment it
can give on biology is that which has to do with the succession of discrete elements in a
system. Hempel’s dilemma and the halting problem expose the physicalist point of departure of
everything is physical as a religious premise, which is not empirically verifiable. Instead of
getting a better view of Being the contours of meaning of life as well as all the supra
physical aspects of Being fades away or is denied with concealment of Being. The only way
in which we can get the broadest possible insight into Being is in the light of the Word of
God. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NWUBOLOKA1/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/4876 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Louw, Jacobus Adriaan |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | North-West University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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