This session is not about clairvoyance (soz) but phenomena is a good place to start. More specifically the philosophical tradition of Phenomenology.
Whilst philosophy spends a lot of time exploring ethics, logic, knowledge etc. which can sometimes seem rather abstract, something 'out there', Phenomenology asks us to look closer to home for truths about our existence.
Largely founded by Edmund Husserl about 130 years ago, Ed said that instead of asking what is a human being, we should ask what is it like to be a human being? This was radical at the time. Before Husserl the likes of Descartes said that the body was separate from the mind, arguing that thinking (use of our mind) was the bedrock of our very existence. Our minds were Independent, detached, special, almost sacred.
Husserl’s view that existence was bound up with our whole lived experience went on to feed the thinking of the Existentialists. This brings us to the views of the Existentialist Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
This funky dancer, a sure-fire Strictly winner, questioned the 'detached' nature of the mind as somehow removed from the body. His take was that we are embodied creatures. The body and brain together make up our human form and act in a way that’s integral to defining who we are.
The mushy grey blob in our skulls is wizardry for sure, but if all thought was from it, why should we care about the body so much? Why does body-related shape, gender and sex matter? Or what we cover our bodies with, or why art from Renaissance paintings to Banksy, depicts whole bodies, rather than just portraying clever thoughts?
Children's first drawings are of whole people (often rather strangely shaped ones!). All of this would be no surprise to the child development guru Piaget. He noticed that babies (us once) start out understanding the world from where they, as whole bodies, begin and end. Only later do they come round to understanding others' perspectives. So, argued Maurice (whilst throwing some shapes) its mind AND body that fully establishes us in the world. Anyway, perhaps our brains are overrated? The sea squirt (yes, it really gets called that) gives up on its energy intense brain, letting it dissolve within its body, once it gets rooted somewhere (like me on a beach holiday). This is because the brains’ main function seems to be movement related.
Anyway, I digress a little from our hip-swaying hero. To the first question of the session: 'Where are WE located'? is it in a yet-to-be identified point between the ears, or is it in our entire form?
There’s more. If the whole separate mind thing is untrue, does that mean we are simply one big biological machine? Well Maurice responded (whilst cutting a rug) pointing to Phantom Limb Syndrome.
This is common amongst amputees who believe, feel even, their absent body parts. Impossible said Maurice (shaking his booty) if we were only computer-like and essentially driven by an all-powerful brain. No feedback/input and the computer would say 'no'.
This view has been further backed up by several more recent thinkers such as Hubert Dreyfus. He reckoned that the mistake made by many Neuroscientists is to equate the mind/body with hardware/software.
This is wrong, as the human experience is felt in its entirety. It is not just a tiny flash in a discreet part of the Frontal Cortex. When you stub your toe or feel the hairs on the back of your neck rise, you really do feel the tingle of excitement in your neck or the pain in your toe as it hits something solid. Our nervous system and various neuron clusters connects together a whole, aware, body.
This is why, one argument goes, that seeking to create human-like intelligence in non-human forms is doomed. And there’s another challenge to the human machine-as-computer conundrum. In addition to replicating both our thinking faculties and linking it to our form. A machine ‘human replicant’ would also require the complete real-world experience, from birth to death, to understand what it is to be human (or for a machine, what it is to be human-like). If to replicate humans with machines we had to copy the human form and developmental experiences, why bother? We can do that through giving birth to, then bringing up, children'
So, to question two: ‘Can intelligent machines, without human form and human developmental experience, ever be human-like?'
Perhaps we should be looking for technology that is not trying to mimic humans… And perhaps we should launch Philosophy on the dance floor?
Anyone can attend this session. No experience in philosophy or knowledge of the subject is required in advance. Just come along and enjoy. People come along from a wide range of ages, social and educational backgrounds. Almost no-one has a philosophy degree. But be civil please. Its a social group, no-one wants to be lectured at.
Unfortunately this venue is not mobility friendly (stairs).