6-36 Gigantor is still under human control.
. . . is disputed by . . .
6-37 Cherries on the keyboard.
The claim (Selmer Bringsjord, 1992)
Imagine that the console operator, while working under a cherry
tree, falls asleep as a swift wind kicks up. Cherries fall onto
the console and hit exactly the same keys as the operator would
have typed to instantiate the Gigantor computations. Now the computations
are controlled only by natural laws (without human direction).
Yet falling cherries should not make the difference between an
entity having and not having mental states. Functionalists must
claim that it does make a difference. Therefore, functionalism
(even with the natural law requirement) is false.
The Bringsjord argument
Bringsjord writes, "Suppose that Jones is out there overseeing
the Lone Star production, punching away madly on his keyboard,
and the poor Norwegians are scurrying about like automata, their
brains under the electrical control of Jones' keyboard. Jones,
however, is working in the cool shade under an enormous cherry
tree, and he s growing tired and sleepy. What's more, a stiff
breeze has kicked up. Jones, his lids growing too heavy, falls
asleep right at his seat and slumps to the side. But the breeze
picks up to the point where cherries begin to fall off overhead
branches. And, as luck would have it, the falling cherries drop
onto Jones' keyboard; moreover they fall and hit keys in just
the way Jones' had been hitting them in order to drive the Lone
Star brain."
Then Bringsjord concludes: "It should be clear where I'm going. . . . No autonomous agents are at work. The entire production is now under the control of physical laws--laws which stir the winds, and carry electrical impulses from Jones' console to our poor Norwegians. But is seems completely obvious that Jones' slumping over, and falling cherries serendipitously picking up where he left off, cannot be precisely the things that make a difference, and suddenly and unaccountably combine to give rise to Gigantor, a massive being who bears mental states like you and me" (S. Bringsjord, 1992, pp. 222-223).
References
Bringsjord, Selmer. 1992.What Robots Can and Can't Be.
Boston: Kluwer.