ABSTRACT
The generalization of Ned Block’s argument for robots would involve imagining a robot that had been canned with instructions for what to do in every circumstance in which it might find itself, barring only those circumstances whose probability is exceedingly low. There is another line of resistance to the possibility of robotic understanding that needs to be addressed. The project of building a conscious robot can then be conceived as the project of building a robot with a ‘brain’ that can harbor events with that characteristic. John Searle did not argue that robots do not have understanding because they have no sensations. The response does nothing to address the point that robots, unlike computers, have detectors and motors that do enable them to interact with both verbal and nonverbal things. There is a line of resistance to this point about robots that can be put forward by someone who agrees that intentionality can be naturalized.
