David's Part in Searle vs. Dennet

After watching AI, I felt that my original views and opinions had been challenged. Before watching AI I believed that Searle was right, that the matter matters. Although a super computer can be arranged in a certain way to act like humans that it is not necessarily a human being. When I relate this to David, he did act like this in the beginning. He was a robot designed to love but acted removed from society. There were specific things that made him different from Monica's and Henry's real son, Martin. But when Martin put him up to different challenges like eating the spinach or cutting off Monica's hair, David reacted like any other normal boy. David felt that he had to compete with Martin, which is normal for any foreign boy being put in another household.

This is where I started to lean towards Dennet's view. David is different from all the other Mechas that he meets. He believes he is unique which separates him from the rest. When he is at the Flesh Fairs and is displayed in front of the whole audience, he shows emotions that he could be a real boy. This causes an upheaval amongst the audience because no other Mecha has showed emotion and fear like David had. Dennet believes that with the right configuration anything can act like a human even beer cans and string. When David is looking for the Blue Fairy and showing that he dreams of pleasing his mother, I started to believe he was more and more like a real boy. I started to feel sympathetic for him because all he wanted was to be loved. He had unconditional love for his mother who had rejected him because of his awkwardness in the family. All David needed in the end was to be accepted and loved by his mother to make him happy. David shows that there is potential for a robot to have true emotions towards a mother or father. Although he was a little out of place in the beginning, he learned through his adventure and in the end was able to reunite with his mother for a day and be loved.