Artificial Intelligence - can machines think?

The word 'intelligence' is used frequently and with many different meanings. In fact, we have defined cognitive science as the study of intelligent systems. Using the term this way, it must pick out a concept broad enough to cover virtually any type of cognition. But even if the term is fairly broad and even if we sometimes speak as if intelligence admits of degrees (i.e., one thing can be more or less intelligent than another thing), it is still the case that intelligence is an important threshold term. That is to say, not everything qualifies as "intelligent". Some things (like humans and German shepherds) reach the threshold that is required for intelligence and some things don't (like rocks and vacuum cleaners). But what is it, exactly, that distinguishes those things that are intelligent, from those things that aren't? Soon we will consider answers to that question. But first there are some theoretical issues to review.