Just as the development of relativity theory and quantum mechanics have been the defining events of twentieth-century science, the burgeoning field of cognitive science is often trumpeted as being a glimpse into the future of the center of science in the coming century. In this paper, we examine this claim, asking whether the so-called cognitive “revolution” is indeed revolutionary or, on theother hand, is merely a flash-in-the-pan, scientifically speaking. As a point of perspective on this question, the paper looks at the claims and accomplishments of artificial inteIligence, as well as the research agenda of workers in the currently fashionable field of artificial life. The paper concludes with some speculations about what directions the “cognitive revolution” is likely to take over the comingdecade or two.

There seems to exist an indirect link between computer science and theology via psychology, which is founded on dualism. First, these theories from psychology, computer science and theology are considered that acknowledge the existence of (at least) two different kinds of reality, or, possibly, two different realms of the same reality. In order to express a root of incompatibility of science and theology, a distinction is drawn between ontological and epistemological dualism. It seems that computer science combines ontological monism with epistemological monism, theology combines ontological and epistemological dualism, and psychologytakes a position of epistemological monism and is quite hesitant about the ontological status of the phenomena it analyzes. A direct transition from the computer metaphor to theology is almost impossible: there is no overlap of platforms between these domains.

If t he field of Artificial Life (“ALife”) i s successful, we will be forced to confront some difficult moral and philosophical issues which we might otherwise have been able to avoid. The ability to create new life forms as well as destroy existing ones will place a greater responsibility upon us. In addition, the existence of living systems within computer-simulated environments will present some new and unusual moral issues, as a result of the nature of computers and our control over them. lt is the purpose of this paper to stimulate some questions that we may be forced to directly confront in the future; this paper will not attempt to resolve these issues. It is the author’s hope to encourage speculation about the moral role of scientists engaging in ALife endeavors, and to remind the ALife scientist that this research does not take place in a moral vacuum.

We examine herein some aspects of the mind/brain problem as they have been approached from a standpoint of mimesis. Such studies are usually prefixed by the adjective “artificial,” as in “artificial intelligence”; “artificial life,” etc. A key assertion of such approaches is embodied in the familiar “Turing Test” ; that two systems which behave “enough” alike are alike. Specifically, that a properly programmed finite-state device (i.e., a Turing machine) which behaves “sufficiently” intelligently is intelligent; or, contrapositively, that any system which behaves intelligently can be replaced by such a device. We place such mimetic approaches into a historical context, and contrast them with paralleI scientific approaches to the same questions. We argue that there is no finite threshold, beyond which “enough” commonality of behavior allows us to conclude an equation of causal underpinnings with finitely-generated syntax typical of algorithmic devices, and hence that assertions like Turing’s Test are false.