Does the submarine swim?*

Let’s see what Noam Chomsky said about one concern in Philosophy of Mind today: whether our actions are somehow unconscious or not. Of course, this idea evolves defining consciousness as well. Also, a little bit about AI and robotics come together.
Answering the question if our mind can be emulated using silicon, Chomsky quoted that the mind is just an organized matter, that is, our brain is a physical system. However, there are some researchers studying if the voluntary actions are sometimes preceded by a preconscious brain´s activity that can reach the consciousness or not. Thus, probably we don’t have a right access to our introspection as we believe. Following this argument, Chomsky also argued that the task of investigating our preconscious decision is a problem that is harder than the investigation of the consciousness itself.
On the other hand, artificial intelligence (AI), meaning the way cognitive system works, investigates how the things are going on when we decide to do this or that and it can contribute to this debate. But, will the robots be conscious in the future? Firstly, how we know what the consciousness is and how it works? For Chomsky, asking if the machines think is the same as asking if submarines can swim. It is a logical question. The serious version of the Turing test is to be applied on real scenarios, for example, to know if a mathematical proof is correct or not.
So, by the Chomsky analysis we can realize that his vision is near of Physicalism although he didn’t give us much information in this short video. Moreover, the consciousness is not a mystery for him which indicates the irrelevance of this investigation and empathizing the more realistic cases.


* Chomsky short speech: https://youtu.be/0ORHGa-vQp0?t=3

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