Because Lycan is a materialist, his metaphysical views on the possibility of artificial intelligence are quite simple. The mind, being nothing more that a physical entity, is relevant only because of its function and what it can do rather than what it is made of. The bulk of Lycan's assumptions regarding AI rest on the hypothetical technology involved in his mind experiments. Lycan's main argument revolves around the mind experiment of an artificially intelligent creature named Harry. Basically, Harry acts and looks exactly like a human. He can do anything that a human can and is basically very much the same as a human other than his physical makeup. With the possibility of this assumed to be so, Lycan attempts to answer the following questions. Is Harry a person, does he have thoughts, feelings, and so on, and, is he conscious. Lycan believes that Harry would be considered a person because of the fact that he acts like a pers

In contrast, Searle, also a materialist, discusses the topic of AI with more emphasis on its metaphysical and epistemological agendas. Searle's opinions largely revolve around his concepts of "as-if and intrinsic Intentionality." Intrinsic Intentionality, as Searle describes it, is "honest-to-goodness Intentionality" involving the genuine belief of a true believer. As-if Intentionality on the other hand is "unreal Intentionality," in which "the eye of the beholder ...does not truly inhere in the subject beheld. Searle uses these terms to create a distinction between the intrinsic Intentionality of a human and the "simulated belief" of a computer or other means of AI. Like Lycan, Searle uses a complex thought experiment called "The Chinese Room Argument," to further portray his position. The experiment involves a hypothetical situation in which a man is locked in a room with a basket of Chinese symbols and a large manual. There is a slot in the door in which people from the outside insert questions written in Chinese. The man, who understands no Chinese, takes the question, matches it with the appropriated symbols by looking in the manual, and slips the symbols back outside the door. Searle's argument is that Chinese literate persons on the outside might believe that, because the man on the inside can answer questions written in Chinese, he must be Chinese literate as well. However, this is not the case as we know because the man is actually just matching the questions with the manual, an instruction book for the appropriate response. Searle quickly identifies this example as an analogy to computers. In the sam

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Approximate Word count = 1100
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)