Watson the Philosophy of Watson:

Watson The Philosophy of Watson: Can Machines have a Mind of Their Own? Watson, the computer that played Jeopardy! against human contestants and beat them very badly, is not only a subject of great scientific curiosity but also raises many important philosophical questions.

Appearing to be a major step forward in artificial intelligence and perhaps a form of true artificial intelligence himself, one might be tempted to say that Watson has a mind of his own, and that this entity is more than simply a computer but is a form of sentient being, though being one that is created by humans.

Several issues arise when trying to discuss and determine the nature of Watson as a thinking being or as nothing more or less than a very sophisticated computer with some surprising and engaging applications, and each of these must be examined in order to answer the central question of whether or not Watson is true artificial intelligence and has a "mind of his own." Examination from both an ontological and an epistemological perspective will show that while it might be possible for an artificial intelligence to one day emerge from research, Watson does not represent this step in the evolution of computers.

A Mind is in the Mind of the Beholder As William James would say, there needs to first be a discussion of what the practical differences are between something that is a mind and is not a mind, or something that is artificial intelligence or that is not artificial intelligence. This is an epistemological problem concerning what can actually be known about the working of a computer like Watson and how it can be investigated using other concepts in language and philosophy.

In other words, James points out in his lecture "What Pragmatism Means" that there has to be a determination made regarding "what difference would it practically make to any one if this notion rather than that notion were true?" There must be a practical meaning behind the term "artificial intelligence," and only then can there be a practical discussion of whether or not Watson fits this category and what the truth of the situation is -- what knowledge can be obtained.

Computers have existed for quite some time and have long been used as some form of apparent intelligence, conducting calculations and running through other "thinking" tasks much faster and more efficiently than humans. This type of computational work is not considered artificial intelligence, though, and there must be something else that creates a practical division between an advanced computer and a true artificial intelligence.

If the criteria of creativity is use to determine when something is intelligent in the manner meant here, meaning that a computer would need to be able to creatively approach and solve its own problems in order to be considered an artificial intelligence, then in must be said that Watson is not truly an artificial intelligence.

It is true that Watson can learn and can get better at solving problems, but Watson can only learn and respond to Jeopardy! questions according to the algorithms he has been programmed with, and Watson does not "understand" the questions in the same way a human mind does but rather looks for patterns in the words used and attempts to line them up with other patterns of words in its memory bank.

This is not the way that human thought processes work, and Watson cannot be said to be an artificial intelligence if creative and self-directed thought is the criteria of intelligence being sought. Using James' epistemological view of the meaningfulness of truth and the practicality of divisions such as what is and is not artificial intelligence, Watson is not an artificial intelligence and so does not truly have a "mind" of his own.

This is only using the mind as a metaphor for intelligence, however, which would again be a problem for James and would also be a problem from an ontological perspective. In order to consider whether or not Watson has a mind, and indeed whether or not any computer could ever have a mind, a consideration of Gilbert Ryle's thoughts concerning the nature of the mind is very much needed.

Ryle asserts that the misunderstanding of the split between the mind and the body that has been a philosophical problem since at least the time of Rene Descartes arises because people misunderstand the nature of the mind by equating it with the body.

Though the body is part of what Ryle calls the "deterministic system" of the world and though people have tried to explain the mind using the same deterministic system, what is meant by "mind" in this sense has nothing to do with the physical and deterministic world an operates in a completely different manner that cannot be explained in the same terms as something deterministic. Asking how the mind works invites many problems in meaningful explanation.

Asking whether or not Watson has a mind or whether or not any computer could have a mind is also fraught with many problems, first because the practical ddefintion of a 'mind" and the difference of having a mind or not having a mind would need to be defined according to James, and second because the non-physical mind that is the interesting aspect of Watson (if it exists for Watson) cannot be explained or understood in physical and deterministic terms, according to Ryle.

Ryle's argument touches on both epistemology and ontology, then, limiting what can be known about the mind and especially the mind of another (which is an epistemological problem) while also making it difficult to understand the nature of the mind's existence in human.