Tuesday, July 19, 2011

On the Self

This is a quick rehashing of something I keep saying, saying in class, saying in life, hell I can't quit pointing it out: you are not alone.

I just read an amazing set of papers by my students on the question of Artificial Intelligence: Can Computer's Think. I must say, I'm not always used to getting a thoughtful set of papers on this particular issue, perhaps the problem is in the question I ask - hard to be sure.

However, there is one problem that always comes up. The argument is made that computers can't think because they are programmed, whereas HUMANS were plopped down by GOD with absolute FREEWILL. HORSESHIT.

I don't care about the god stuff, but I do care about the I-exist-in-a-vacuum-as-a-self-contained-vessel shit. We are always-already worked on. And we work back on the world. It is not us and then world; rather we are in-the-world beings, burdened by time and other crap, like airports and check-out lines.

Now to be clear, I actually agree with most of my students thoughts that what computers do is not what we do. But I think the ticket is Hubert Dreyfus' explanation of intuition and how intuition is a fundamental part of thinking. Namely, according to Dreyfus thinking isn't simply following rules. That's the crux - it's not simply that computers need other people and we don't or that computers can't learn - I'm pretty sure they can; it's that humans when they become adept at something start operating in this weird space, what athletes call "the zone." So if there's something special about us, and hopefully there is since we have all that crap like death and shopping lines to deal with, it's in the profound way we can perform in the world, but we always do this in the world, responding, not standing above the world, and certainly not outside it.

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