In this paper, I will evaluate Putnam’s, Turing’s and Searle’s argument concerning computers having consciousness. I will argue that Searle’s argument against computers having consciousness is the stronger argument of the three arguments. Firstly, I will begin by examining the Turing’s and Putman’s argument showing their strengths and weaknesses. Then I will layout Searle’s argument and showing it strengths and weaknesses. Consequently, I will show that although Artificial Intelligence has the capability of producing machines that have humanistic functions, this science however lacks the ability to produce computers with minds. In other words, computers will do a lot, but won’t be a lot.
Artificial Intelligence according to the Webster dictionary can be defined as computer programs developed to mimic human intelligence, such as reasoning, learning, problem-solving, and making decisions. Artificial intelligence programs enable computers to perform tasks such as playing chess, proving mathematical theorems, etc. The definition of Artificial Intelligence can be further placed into four categories, these are systems that think like humans, systems that act like humans, systems that think rationally and systems that act rationally.
Let examine the Turing test; this is test experiment invented by as the name suggests by A.M Turing as a proposal for the question whether machines can think. This experiment is one in which two connecting rooms are arranged each consisting of a teletypewriter. One room has a human (interrogator) and the other room is occupied by a human and a machine. The interrogator communicates freely with the human and the machine via the teletypewriter; it’s the aim of the interrogator to figure out which occupant of the other room is the machine and which is the human. Turing claims that any machine that could fool the interrogator was “intelligent” and conscious.
John Searle on the other hand, shows dissent on this test put forth by Turing. He is very sardonic about what he refers to as the “Strong Artificial Intelligence Hypothesis” (that a machine is conscious if and only is it reproduces the functionality of a human being). Searle argues that simulating something is not the same as recreating it: in other words you can simulate a storm in a computer, but you don’t get wet. Likewise, he says you can simulate thought in a computer, but this does not give way to a thinking computer.
In my opinion John Searle has a very strong argument for why computers can’t have minds; however he is a little unfair in the treatment of the Artificial Intelligence specialist. If say I know how to solve a calculus problem, and I also know how to write in a high-programming level language such as C++ how to solve calculus problems. We as humans are not going refer to the computer as simulating a calculus problem; rather we are going to say the computer is solving the problem. The reason for this is the essence of solving a calculus problem is input and output. Similarly with thinking, the AI specialist observe the essence of thinking is the relationship between what goes in (input) and what comes out, the in between stuff is of no consequence. Therefore, Searle, Turing, and the rest of the AI community have some truth to their theories, but they use different definition and are talking from cross-purposes.

Undoubtedly as shown by science, it is in principle possible to have a computer or robot reproduce humanistic behaviors. A machine however cannot have conscious mental states because mental states are objective, whereas states in the central processing unit of a machine are designated by a computer engineer. This can be further explained, as any data in the memory of a machine is only interpreted by the way in which the program decides what it means. If I break my leg, my pain is objective that is it does not depend on how I interpret my pain. Thus there is a difference in the theory of existence between the informatic existence and practical existence.
An additional way in which the theory of computer having mind is refuted, is by Thomas Nagel famous paper entitled “What is it like to be a bat,” in which he claimed that having a first-person perspective is the real meaning of being a conscious mind. A computer cannot ask itself the question what it is like to be another entity; it cannot even interpret what it is like being a machine. In other words computers are not aware of themselves.
The human mind is clearly not a physical thing as argued by dualist thinkers such as Descartes that is the mind exists as separate entity from that of the physical brain. Using this point of view, in order to determine if machine is capable of having a brain, we can look from the same standpoint used to determine if another human has a brain. Humans are physiologically similar to each other. I know that I am conscious, there is overwhelming evidence from medial journals and other pieces of literature supporting that other humans have similar brains, and that human behavioral characteristic is as of result of brain activity. In the case where computer are just merely software running on electronic circuitry the physical argument just does not hold up.
We as human beings live in a non-deterministic environment that is things are constantly changing around us. There is no set limit on the capacity of our brain, we learn and make inferences on a daily basis. Millions of new instructions are read in daily by our brains and new ways of adapting to our ever changing environment has to be constantly being processed by our minds. In computer intelligence, there is a set knowledge base, it is true that computers can simulate facts and make inferences about an environment, but there is always a set capacity to how a computer can learn. Some problems are just not practically solvable by the computer, as some problems cannot be put in terms of computational data; other problems might take a computer a really long time to solve a problem providing that it doesn’t run out of memory or disk space.
The way in which computer represents data is deterministic as binary digits, a behavioral pattern or a computer program crashing are not random behavior they can all be traced back by humans if needs be. There is no scientific evidence to show how data is stored in the brain. Hence we as humans can never completely simulate human consciousness in a computer. Consider the following example; looking out at the sea I have a visual sensation that the sea is blue, because other people I heard before called the sea blue. When I look at an apple, I have another visual sensation which I call red for similar reason mentioned previously. However, another human being could look at the same objects and have the opposite visual sensations, even though he may give the same color name to the objects I viewed. The point is if someone was to interchange the color codes and blue would be red and red would be blue, in humans we can imagine this interchanging of colors happening without affecting the human brain. In a machine, new code would have to be fixed and recompiled again hence we have to change the information processing of the computer to give the computer new inference. Emotions are very much apart of what makes us human, and goes along with the functioning of our mind, that is emotions affect our behavior and way of thinking. There is no way possible that we could teach a computer, emotions such as how to love, a concept that we as humans have difficult understanding or explaining.
In concluding, John Searle’s arguments are the strongest of the three arguments that states that the computer cannot have consciousness. Consciousness cannot arise from unconscious material object (computer). Machines cannot generate ideas of the own free will, if a machine cannot be creative then they cannot be intelligent and people cannot be machines. Contrary to Turing beliefs it is creativity not computational methods that should be used as the true judge of whether a computer has a mind or not. Computers are way to simplistic in nature to consist of a conscious mind. A computer system is by no means aware of itself or have the ability to be aware what it means to be some else. There is no randomness with the way in which computers behave; all computer behavior output is deterministic. As argued in this paper a machine can never have conscious mental states, as mental states are objective and the information processing states of a computer is strictly designated. Artificial Intelligence is very useful to humans as it encompasses huge variety of subfields, ranging from general-purpose areas, such as learning and perception to such specific tasks as playing chess, proving mathematical theorems, diagnosing diseases. Artificial Intelligence will continue to produce machines with the capacity to be stronger versions of the Turing Test, but the attempt to build a machine that has a mind will inevitably fail.