"What's it like to be a computer?" or "Calculating remarks regarding Frank Jackson's thought experiment regarding qualia"
In Frank Jackson's thought experiment, Mary knows everything a scientist can know about the color blue but has never sensed it. Later, when she did sense blue, (Jackson points out that) Mary would know something new that she hadn't known before.
BUT what would we say if someone gave Mary black&white-only night/day vision goggles and had her walk around the blue-lit world without letting her actually see the blueness of blue things, but while giving her blue detector so that she would be able to respond to blue colors in a manner roughly as adequate as those of us who have been allowed to use our eyes normally?
Would she still know what blue is? (To those of you who would say that, even though knowledge is knowing how to interact, yet she wouldn't know what blue is because her behavior would never be equivalent to that of a blue-seer, I would reply ad hominem, asking whether you think a computer could really act like a human being. If you think the answer is "yes," then you are being arbitrary in saying "no" here. If you think "no,"" then you are consistent in saying "no" here)
No: that is, not in the way in which she would if she were allowed to take the goggles off and to see blue directly.
But what if Mary is a computer?
That is, when we say a computer knows what the color blue is, do we mean that it knows the set of facts that Mary knows prior to seeing blue? If that's all, then CompuMary will never know what blue is in the way that HumanMary does when she finally takes off her goggles.
Or do we mean that it knows how to interact with blue things? If so, then CompuMary doesn't know blue any more than HumanMary did when she initially used a blue-detector to interact with the blue-lit world but had her eyes protected from blue hues by vision goggles.
I think we have a constructive dilemma here. That is, either way, the computer does not know the color blue. Furthermore, we can take the point about blue and apply it to all colors, and to all five (or more) senses: that is, NO computer cognizes any external sensible qualities. And since perceiving common sensibles is done ONLY by finding them embedded in proper sensibles, it follows that CompuMary does not perceive any common sensible qualities either.
If follows that, if computers think, the surely must be engaging in imageless thought. At this point, it seems to me, that a destructive dilemma faces anyone who thinks that computers can think. To agree to that thesis, one would have to affirm the ability of a machine to engage in imageless thought. But to grant the latter seems to open the door to some sort of immateriaity.
The other alternative, is to insist that computers don't really think: that sounds quite plausible to me.
BUT what would we say if someone gave Mary black&white-only night/day vision goggles and had her walk around the blue-lit world without letting her actually see the blueness of blue things, but while giving her blue detector so that she would be able to respond to blue colors in a manner roughly as adequate as those of us who have been allowed to use our eyes normally?
Would she still know what blue is? (To those of you who would say that, even though knowledge is knowing how to interact, yet she wouldn't know what blue is because her behavior would never be equivalent to that of a blue-seer, I would reply ad hominem, asking whether you think a computer could really act like a human being. If you think the answer is "yes," then you are being arbitrary in saying "no" here. If you think "no,"" then you are consistent in saying "no" here)
No: that is, not in the way in which she would if she were allowed to take the goggles off and to see blue directly.
But what if Mary is a computer?
That is, when we say a computer knows what the color blue is, do we mean that it knows the set of facts that Mary knows prior to seeing blue? If that's all, then CompuMary will never know what blue is in the way that HumanMary does when she finally takes off her goggles.
Or do we mean that it knows how to interact with blue things? If so, then CompuMary doesn't know blue any more than HumanMary did when she initially used a blue-detector to interact with the blue-lit world but had her eyes protected from blue hues by vision goggles.
I think we have a constructive dilemma here. That is, either way, the computer does not know the color blue. Furthermore, we can take the point about blue and apply it to all colors, and to all five (or more) senses: that is, NO computer cognizes any external sensible qualities. And since perceiving common sensibles is done ONLY by finding them embedded in proper sensibles, it follows that CompuMary does not perceive any common sensible qualities either.
If follows that, if computers think, the surely must be engaging in imageless thought. At this point, it seems to me, that a destructive dilemma faces anyone who thinks that computers can think. To agree to that thesis, one would have to affirm the ability of a machine to engage in imageless thought. But to grant the latter seems to open the door to some sort of immateriaity.
The other alternative, is to insist that computers don't really think: that sounds quite plausible to me.
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