Discovery Projects - Grant ID: DP0209150

Funding Activity

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Funded Activity Summary

Mindful things: cross-cultural perspectives on the criteria for intelligence. This project will bring contemporary theories on artificial intelligence into conversation with ancient Greek and Indian philosophy. Turing proposed that a machine that could imitate a human's conversational abilities would count as thinking. The ancient Greeks and Indians supposed that there were mindful things, like the cosmos as a whole, that would not pass such a test. Why is there such disagreement? We will learn something about our own conception of the mind by examining their reasons for supposing that such things had minds. One objective is to question the degree to which the idea of a mind is culturally constructed.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2002

End Date: 31-12-2006

Funding Scheme: Discovery Projects

Funding Amount: $50,000.00

Funder: Australian Research Council