So, I was reading Searle's 'Minds, Brains and Programs', and he raises the point that if we take minds to be something like a complex program, and we are serious about the possibility of strong AI, we are committed to some form of dualism as thinking 'Minds = Programs' is independent of realization via artificial brains.
Would you agree with this? Disagree?
Ethan Cook
What a stupid argument. This Searle fellow sounds like a moron, I wouldn't waste any more of your time reading his """thoughts""" if I were you.
Leo Watson
>if we take minds to be something like a complex program
If we did this we'd be fools, because that's not at all what the mind is like.
>we are committed to some form of dualism as thinking 'Minds = Programs' is independent of realization via artificial brains.
What? If you made an artificial brain that is capable of generating an artificial mind, then this is no different than how natural brains and minds work.
Blake Barnes
I think by "strong AI" he's referring to an artificial intelligence that could reproduce and physically accrue to its own intellectual capabilities, and this would make it qualitatively different than standard, organic human intelligence, hence "dualism." Not arguing for this, but this is what he seems to be saying.
Jayden Taylor
I guess forgot to mention, but the question is whether it would be possible on a extremely sophisticated digital computer.
Searle does mention that a replica brain would likely operate the same as a normal brain.
Charles James
>What? If you made an artificial brain that is capable of generating an artificial mind, then this is no different than how natural brains and minds work.
Except it won't have a soul
Ryan Phillips
>20th century Anglo-American philosophy >Worthwhile
Isaac Anderson
You presuppose not only the truth of Cartesian dualism but also that the problem of other minds isn't a problem in a world where minds are easily identifiable to each other. Not only is Cartesian dualism false, but if it were true the problem of other minds would come into play. t. philsophy 101
Asher Martin
It doesn't matter if the brain is a physical mass of neurons, a mechanical mass of wires, or even a data construct that exists only in virtual reality, it's still a physical thing and the mind is generates is still likewise a physical thing.
Dualism is idiotic anyway, how could a non-physical mind interact with a physical brain anyway?
Bentley Price
>Dualism is idiotic anyway, how could a non-physical mind interact with a physical brain anyway? What else would the pineal gland be fore, you retard?
Henry Mitchell
>Except it won't have a soul
So just like a real brain then?
Samuel Cook
If you think the pineal gland is magic then it's pretty obviously you who are retarded.
Xavier Gray
Aristotelian anima theory says that plants and animals have souls, why can't robots?
Christopher Harris
I agree that there isn't a practical difference between an organic brain and a synthetic brain that function at the same level, but the "mind" is a spook that is essentially a modern approximation of the "soul."
Oliver Johnson
OK, so you don't have an alternative explanation for what the pineal gland does?
Andrew Hughes
Minds are what brains do, just as digestion is what digestive tracts do. Is digestion a spook? You can't point to it "in the world" any more than you can point to a mind, but it would be quite a claim to make to claim that means neither of them exist.
Jace Bailey
>HURR
Thomas Gomez
Agree. Dualism hasn't been resolved. Material reductionists brushed it under the carpet, but it's still there. If anything, the only resolution that makes sense is the one that sees the physical realm as being an aspect of consciousness, rather than seeing consciousness as being an aspect of the material realm... not in some fruity "crystals and astrology" sense, but in a "hmm... we really don't know how consciousness works" sense.
Searle is right... if you could potentially get the exact same consciousness by arranging two different material substrates (assuming that consciousness can be generated in such a way at all, other than by the known "fuck and have a baby" route), then clearly there is something mysteriously transcendent about the consciousness-physical relationship.
Jack Sullivan
Did you never dissect a frog in high school?
Landon Clark
>Dualism is idiotic anyway, how could a non-physical mind interact with a physical brain anyway?
The brain exists as a means of imbuing the soul with energy in a self-reliant system, so that the soul can power itself using its own will power.
The brain is a representation of the soul, so that while it appears that it is only the brain interacting with itself, there still is a ghost in the machine.
Cooper Jackson
>"hmm... we really don't know how consciousness works" sense. >He doesn't know about the guy who attained absolute knowledge
Easton Walker
what the fuck am I reading?
Nathaniel Sullivan
You can see guts and the chemicals in them, you can't see "digestion" because it's a complex process that happens on a sub-visible scale. The mind is exactly the same, you can see brains and brain activity but you can't see "minds" because a mind is a whole complex system, at least partially hidden behind the barrier of subjectivity.
Jason Turner
Shitty analogy: I can point to your digestive tract if I spill your guts on the floor, but no matter how delicately I untangle your neurons, I will never find anything that I can hold up and say "this is the mind."
Brody Hill
>Dualism hasn't been resolved
Yes it has. Please posit the mechanism whereby a non-material "substance" can interact with a physical one.
Cooper Parker
So you can't see complex systems? Is that your point?
Christian Jenkins
>then clearly there is something mysteriously transcendent about the consciousness-physical relationship.
Moronic. We can make artificial legs out of metal and plastic, does this mean there is something "mysteriously transcendent" about teh relationship between legs and walking?
Daniel Cruz
Digestion can still be modeled materialistically.
Joseph Turner
Ah, well that's the whole problem with monism... there is no such mechanism known. And it seems ridiculous in principle that there would even be one.
What is mysterious isn't the relationship between brain and mind in the sense of cognition (which is understandable physically), it's the relationship between the physical and SUBJECTIVITY.
Jacob Reed
If you hold up my guts and say "this is digestion", then all you would demonstrate is that you're a moron.
Benjamin Wright
That's just a language game, dickspittle: if you call the mind a "process," that absolves you of the need to physically describe it. As I said, digestion can be accounted for inductively, whereas the mind can't be accounted for either inductively or with reasonable deduction (deduction that starts from a physical point rather than an abstract assumption).
Adrian Brooks
>As I said, digestion can be accounted for inductively, whereas the mind can't be accounted for either inductively or with reasonable deduction
Why would you say something so stupid? Did you have a stroke in mid post? OF COURSE the mind can be accounted for inductively and deductively, I have no clue why you would think otherwise.
Ryder Ward
The primary function of the pineal gland is to produce melatonin. Light sensitive nerve cells in the retina detect light and send this signal to the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), synchronizing the SCN to the day-night cycle. Nerve fibers then relay the daylight information from the SCN to the paraventricular nuclei (PVN), then to the spinal cord and via the sympathetic system to superior cervical ganglia (SCG), and from there into the pineal gland.
The compound pinoline is also claimed to be produced in the pineal gland; it is one of the beta-carbolines, though this claim is subject to some controversy.
Studies on rodents suggest that the pineal gland also influences the pituitary gland's secretion of the sex hormones, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), and luteinizing hormone.
Adam Wilson
I know you believe it can be accounted for deductively, that much is obvious (so it is with God and the rest), I am interested to know how you think it can be measured inductively.
Charles Myers
The brain is a physical representation of the soul and it's mental activities, while being distinct.
If the brain is a complete analogue for the soul, then why does it need to act upon it?
For instance, your desire to read this is represented by neurons firing in a network, which leads to the state of potentially replying or not, also represented by neurons. Eventually you make a decision, also represented by neurons.
All of this exists because the soul in it's natural state has a nature of self-"propulsion". In order for the soul to propel itself, it must exist in a system in which the constituent phenomena all use their own power.
By eating/digesting/etc food you are building your own awareness with the aid of the body.
Check out the soul hypothesis book for more interesting ideas about dualism.
Logan Johnson
>the soul hypothesis book This sounds like a whole lot of bullshit.