That's not just a set of functions--variables, as one might say in the lab.It's produced by genius.

它不仅仅只是一套机器，像人们在实验室所见的一样多变，它是由天才创作的。

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One possibility, of course, is, why not say that people are just robots as well and we get our commands from outside?

当然有一种说法是,为什么不说人类也是,也是由外部指令控制着的机器人呢

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It's pretty clear that there are lots of machines that it doesn't seem natural to ascribe beliefs or desires or goals or reasoning to.

很显然对于很多种机器来说,讨论它们的信仰,欲望,目标或论证,是一件很不自然的事

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And the thought, of course, is that the robot or the computer is a deterministic system and you can't have free will if you're a deterministic system.

那个想法,当然,是说机器人和电脑只是一种决定论的系统,而如果你是个决定论系统的话,就不可能有自由意志

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And robots, the objection goes, are programmed; they necessarily follow their program.

而且这一反驳指出,机器人是被编程的,机器人必须遵照程序做事

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I mean, after all from the physicalist's point of view, we're just a kind of glorified robot, able to do all sorts of things that most robots in most science fiction movies can do.

我的意思是,根据物理主义者的观点,人只是一种"高级"的机器人,能做到大多数科幻电影里,大多数机器人所能做到的事

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When we think of the kinds of examples of material machines that we've got available to us in the fourteenth century, I try to imagine what would somebody in the fourteenth century think to himself or herself when he entertains the possibility that a plant might just be a machine?

当我们回想14世纪时期的,各种机器,我试着想象,一个生活在14世纪的人,他,或她,在面对一株植物可能,只不过是一台机器的观点时会怎么想

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