Trans. Kim Jones (extract only)
1.1 Mechanist Philosophies
1.1.1 Different types of Mechanism
I distinguish the following mechanist hypotheses:
BEHAVIOURIST MECHANISM
Some machines can behave as thinking beings (living, conscious etc.)
(BEH-MEC)
STRONG MECHANISM
Some machines can think (living beings, conscious beings, have a
private life etc.) (STR-MEC)
INDEXICAL MECHANISM
I am a machine (or - you are a machine, or again - human beings are
machines) (IND-MEC)
By replacing "machine" by "digital machine" one obtains the
corresponding digital theses.
The behaviourist digital mechanism BEH-DIG-MEC corresponds largely to
that of Turing in his 1950 article. In the same way, the strong
digital mechanism STR-DIG-MEC corresponds to what is called in the
literature the strong artificial intelligence thesis (strong AI).
In this work I am exclusively interested in indexical and digital
mechanism (IND-DIG-MEC or just IDM). "Digitality" necessitates
Church's Thesis, which is why the digital aspect is explained in its
turn in the second part. There, I will show how a procedure, due
essentially to Goedel, permits an indexical treatment of machines in
general.
Proposition:
IND-MEC => STR-MEC => BEH-MEC, and
BEH-MEC ≠> STR-MEC ≠> IND-MEC.
(with or without the hypothesis of digitality)
Reasoning: One admits that humans know how to think (conscious
beings, having private lives etc.) In this case IND-MEC entails STR-
MEC and STR-MEC entails BEH-MEC. That BEH-MEC does not entail STR-MEC
is supported by Weizenbaum (1976) (see also Gunderson {footnote 1}
1971). STR-MEC does not entail IND-MEC, since the fact that machines
are able to think does not entail that they alone are able to think.
It is conceivable that machines are able to think without we ourselves
being machines. Wang (1974) presents a similar reasoning.
Nevertheless, numerous philosophers make implicit use of an opposing
opinion: STR-MEC => IND-MEC, see for example Arsac 1987.
{Footnote 1: Gunderson 1971 criticises the Turing Test. The Turing
Test is a test for BEH-MEC. Simply put, a machine (hidden) passes the
test if it is able to pass itself off as a human being during a
"conversation" by means of a computer keyboard terminal.}
1.1.2 Mechanist Philosophy: Historical Summary
Contemporary digital mechanist philosophy is due in large measure to
Descartes and Hobbes {footnote 2} (see Rogow 1986, Bernhardt 1989).
Descartes wanted to distinguish Man from the animals. He argues that
the animal, as much as Man's body (including the brain), is a machine.
He understood by this a finite assembly of of material components that
unequivocally determine the behaviour of the whole. Descartes surmises
that the soul is not mechanical. In separating the soul from the body
in this way, and thus the mind from matter, he is the originator of
the dualist position, widely encompassed by the philosophy of mind.
One speaks of Cartesian Dualism.
There follows three arguments that Descartes presented in favour of
his distinction of man from the animal-as-machine (We note that this
distinction entails the negation of IND-MEC.)
{footnote 2: One can detect some mechanist affirmations or questions
among (pre and post-Socratic, though not necessarily materialist)
philosophers, from Greek antiquity (cf Timaeus and Plato, see also
Odifreddi 1989). Among Chinese philosophers, for example Lao-Tzu, a
certain monk is admired for having passed off his "automated" servants
as flesh and blood beings. Among Hindu philosophers for example, in
the "Questions to the King Milinda", the human body is compared to the
chariot, and the human mind is compared to the different parts of the
chariot, similar to Hume's (1739) manner of tackling the problem of
identity with his boat. The temptation to set up artefacts in the
image of Man is also a component of several myths, (for ex. the Golem
in Jewish culture, see for ex. Breton 1990). It is no exaggeration to
maintain that the very idea of mechanism appears wherever and whenever
machines themselves are developed.}
1) Animals are not endowed with reason and cannot engage in linguistic
communication
This argument is losing credibility since language and reason seem
more accessible to today's machines than for example, emotion which is
communally allowed in the case of certain animals (see for ex. Lévy
1987). Here Descartes takes Aristotle's position which asserts that
Man is a "reasoning animal".
2) Machines are finite beings. A finite being cannot conceive of the
infinite. Now, I am able (said Descartes) to conceive of the infinite.
Thus I am not a machine.
This argument against IND-MEC brings into relief two fundamental
questions:
a) Can man conceive of infinity?
b) Can a machine conceive of infinity?
Question a) differentiates Hobbes' point of view from Descartes'.
Hobbes surmises that he cannot in effect conceive of infinity.
3) A machine can only carry out particular tasks, as it turns out,
those tasks for which it was constructed. In effect, Descartes is
saying:
"Since, in the case that reason is a universal instrument that
participates in every sort of encounter, these organs need a certain
particular disposition for each and every action; from this comes the
idea that it is morally impossible that a machine might possess
sufficient diversity such that it might act in every living occurrence
in the same way that our reason assists our actions (Descartes,
"1953", page 165).
The idea of a universal machine had nevertheless crossed the mind of
Raymond Lulle (1302) whom Descartes had studied. This same idea will
reappear with Leibnitz, culminating in the work of Turing, and this
will be explained in the second part.
La Mettrie will rehash Descartes' animal-as-machine for the purpose of
extending it to Man (La Mettrie 1748, see also Gunderson 1971).
In parallel with Descartes, Hobbes himself develops the mechanist
hypothesis (Rogow 1986). On can date Hobbes' motivation toward
mechanism from the time of his discovery of geometry. Having been
particularly impressed by the fact that he might have been convinced
by a *finite communication* based on logical geometrical reasoning,
Hobbes conceives of the mechanistic character of thinking. He then
thinks that it should be possible to reduce thinking to addition and
subtraction. (see Webb 1980). He is thus very close to the
*functionalist* position in the philosophy of mind: that the additions
and multiplications might be realisable by a *telegraphic network* , a
*hydraulic system*, an *electromagnetic device* , or even *a
windmill*, a *catapult* or a *calculating device* (ordinateur), citing
Searle's enumeration (Searle 1984). Thought is thereby reduced to
operations not necessarily equipment-dependent, and to the constituent
matter employed to realise these operations. La Mettrie, after his own
fashion, argues in something like the same sense:
"Thus a Soul of mud, discovering in the twinkling of an eye, the
relations and the consequences of an infinity of ideas difficult to
conceive, would be preferable evidently to an ignorant and stupid
Soul, which might be made of all the more precious Elements" (La
Mettrie 1748).
Similarly, Lafitte engages us on the subject of Babbage, precursor of
19th century information processing, to which we will return in the
second part:
"For Babbage, all machines being a composition of different organs
linked together in a complex manner, the important thing to fix is
less the very form of the organs than the sequencing of their
functions, which relates to organic linkages that cause the ensemble
to function." (Lafitte 1930).
Differing with Descartes, Hobbes concludes that it is not possible
that Man - whom he considers to be a finite being - might conceive of
the infinite. Hobbes' motivation, being finitist and indexical (human
thought is mechanisable) is therefore opposed to Descartes' animal-as-
machine and is, in this sense, much closer to the contemporary
motivation in the direction of artificial intelligence. Soon I will
return to the relation existing between mechanism and functionalism.
1.1.3 What is a machine?
Given the familiar connotations of the word "machine" - locomotives,
electric kettles, automobiles, computers, microscopes, dish-washers,
sewing machines, rice-cookers, time-pieces, mechanism may well seem
grotesque.
Even if machines are considered to be artefacts of exclusively human
construction, in other words artificial, the concept of the machine is
difficult to define. Lafitte, in 1911 argues that just such a
definition can only be made in vain:
"To claim to be able to define the concept of a machine is to suppose
that the science of machines has come about, or that it might one day
come about in all it's perfection. Other than what is chimerically-
speaking, to assign limits to the development of mechanical forms, is
to suppose in the first place an entire and complete knowledge of the
character of every individual present and future mechanism, followed
by the perfection of a measuring instrument capable of situating each
into a definitive category according to their ensemble of
characteristics. But, this again implicitly admits to a massive
division of sorts, conforming to those contours we can cleanly
envisage and having no link whatsoever with other bodies." (see also
further on 2.3)
Similarly, La Mettrie, in "Man as Machine" writes:
"Man is a Machine so composed that it is frankly impossible to
initially get a clear idea of it and consequently to arrive at a
definition"
What Hobbes and Descartes have in common is that a machine is a
locally finite being. Its global behaviour is determined by the
behaviour of its elementary constituents, these being finite in number
at each instant (call this the "digital aspect"). The number of
components can nonetheless grow according to the work performed by the
machine.
(to be cont.)
K
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Received on Thu Feb 05 2009 - 01:32:15 PST