Artificial Intelligence: The Role of Phenomenology in the Organization of Interdisciplinary Researches

Abstract

Contemporary interdisciplinary researches are now based upon modern information technologies. The core of the studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences is the program of artificial intelligence. The research program of artificial intelligence represents an attempt to unite a conglomerate of different disciplines connected by a common task – to create a theoretical model of “natural” intelligence and to develop, if possible, the way (or “technology”) to manufacture it in order to apply it in different areas of human activity where “natural” intelligence is now used. However, such a program, in a strict sense of the term, still hardly exists – rather it is a “vague” ideology of complex research, which would be able to solve the set of various tasks by means of modern engineering and various “cognitive sciences”. Nevertheless, the Learned Council on the problem of artificial intelligence, which is focused on elaborating the program of interdisciplinary research of human reason with a special reference to artificial intelligence, was established at the beginning of 2006 under the guidance of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Let me remark, by the way, that not only leading Russian scientists but also the students of the corresponding institutes have been involved in the research work. The Council organized the conference entitled “Artificial Intelligence As the Subject of Interdisciplinary Research” (January, 2005) to which not only philosophers but also computer scientists, mathematicians, logicians etc. greatly contributed. The conference gave rise to a permanent seminar. It works with enormous success under the guidance of the vicepresident of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Nevertheless, very few people pose the question whether such a subject exists at all – even in the sense in which mathematicians speak about the “existence” of the solution of this or that problem (even though it still has not been found). In general, the progress of scientific knowledge, not only in mathematics but also in “empirical” sciences, often originates from the effort to solve such a problem, which has no scientific solutions or does not