It seems to me that the long slow debate between these two philophers (add in Daniel Dennett on Hofstadter's side) turns on the fundamental philosophical question of where consciousness begins and ends, which has considerable ramifications beyond the field of artificial intelligence. I reject Searle's argument for reasons too long to go into here, but he is a very interesting philosopher in his own right.
While I'm on this topic, I may as well also mention Stanislaw Lem's essay Non Serviam excerpted here (http://themindi.blogspot.com/2007/02/chapter-19-non-serviam....) from A Perfect Vacuum: Perfect reviews of nonexistent books. Much, perhaps most, of Lem's output is concerned with the nature of consciousness and autonomy explored through the medium of fiction, just as Philip K dick tends to explore the same questions from a psychological standpoint.
It seems to me that the long slow debate between these two philophers (add in Daniel Dennett on Hofstadter's side) turns on the fundamental philosophical question of where consciousness begins and ends, which has considerable ramifications beyond the field of artificial intelligence. I reject Searle's argument for reasons too long to go into here, but he is a very interesting philosopher in his own right.
While I'm on this topic, I may as well also mention Stanislaw Lem's essay Non Serviam excerpted here (http://themindi.blogspot.com/2007/02/chapter-19-non-serviam....) from A Perfect Vacuum: Perfect reviews of nonexistent books. Much, perhaps most, of Lem's output is concerned with the nature of consciousness and autonomy explored through the medium of fiction, just as Philip K dick tends to explore the same questions from a psychological standpoint.