Patricia Churchland & Neurophilosophy

6. Why does Patricia Churchland champion neurophilosophy? Be sure to substantiate your answer.

Patricia Churchland is a Canadian-American philosopher noted for her contributions to neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. (Wikipedia) The most common theme that is portrayed through her works is her belief that if we can understand the brain, then at some point we can understand the state of consciousness. This belief of “first understand the brain, then understand the mind” type of philosophy lead her to neurophilosophy.

Neurophilosophy can be defined in this clear definition as follows: Neurophilosophy or philosophy of neuroscience is the interdisciplinary study of neuroscience and philosophy. Work in this field is often separated into two distinct areas of interest. Neurophilosophy attempts to use empirical information from the neurosciences to address broader philosophical issues, including questions traditionally categorized under the philosophy of mind. The philosophy of neuroscience attempts to clarify neuroscientific methods and results using the conceptual rigor and methods of philosophy of science. Neurophilosophy explores the relevance of neuroscientific studies to arguments in philosophy of mind. Theories in neurophilosophy tend to stand in opposition to those of idealism, dualism, and functionalism, which seek to explain the mental with reference to minds and ideas, rather than the structure and function of the brain. (Wikipedia)

Simply put, it is using science and study of the brain, the structure and its functions, in order to fully understand our minds and consciousness. If we can understand all the molecules in the brain and its functions, then we can truly understand our consciousness.

While the issue of brain-mind is still open for debate without a clear-cut answer, from the perspective of neurophilosophy, an understanding of the philosophical applications of neuroscience discoveries is nevertheless relevant. Even if neuroscience will eventually discover that there no causal relationship between the brain and the mind, the mind would still remain to be correlated to the brain, and as such, neuroscience would still be relevant for the neurophilosophy. On the other hand, if neuroscience will eventually demonstrate a perfect overlap between brain and mind phenomena, neurophilosophy would become great new way of thinking for the study of the mind. Regardless of the how the connection between the brain and the mind turns out to be, it is important to note that neurophilosophy will definitely stay within the range of debate and discussion.

“It isn’t just one specific neuron that helps us feel pain, or love, or happiness, but a whole set of neurons interacting with each other creating the feelings and emotions inside the human mind.” (Patricia Churchland Interview) The real reason why she “champions” neurophilosophy is the very fact that she thinks outside the box and takes different approaches with normal philosophical ideas. One would never think to combine the study of the brain with consciousness, but because she is such a creative thinker, it is possible for her to come up with the idea of neurophilosophy. Because her different ways of thinking, she comes up with different ideas and uses a more scientific approach to philosophy, rather than asking the same questions as other philosophers do. 

Alan Turing

5. Who was Alan Turing and how did he contribute to our potential understanding of artificial intelligence?

Alan Mathison Turing was an English mathematician, logician, cryptographer, and computer scientist. His works have influenced the development of computer science, as well as played a significant role in building our modern computers that we use today. Turing is often considered to be the father of modern computer science and artificial intelligence.

As a student, he seemed to have excelled in mathematics as well as physics. When he was 16, he was able to fully understand the works of Albert Einstein. Not only did he understand them, he even expanded upon Newton’s Law of motion.

During the Second World War, Turing was a main participant in the efforts at Bletchley Park to break German ciphers. Amongst the numerous scientists there, he maintained high reputation by deciphering the German code within the first few weeks after arriving. He contributed several insights into breaking both the Enigma machine and the Lorenz SZ 40/42, and was the head of Hut 8, the section responsible for reading German naval signals.

His initial contributions to artificial intelligence start in 1935. Turing first described an abstract machine having a limitless memory and a scanner that moves back and forth using that memory, reading each symbol and writing its own response to those symbols. The actions of the scanner would be controlled by a list of instructions that would be stored within the memory itself in a form of symbols. This is Turing’s initial idea of programs which he later further claimed that it would be possible for the machine itself to modify and improve its own programs. This abstract concept would later become known as the Turing machine. The modern computers that we have today derived from these initial thoughts.

Later on, Turing gave a public lecture to talk about computer intelligence in London on 1947, saying, “What we want is a machine that can learn from experience,” and that the “possibility of letting the machine alter its own instructions provides the mechanism for this.” He soon started brainstorming ideas and the central concepts of Artificial intelligence, and wrote the report “Intelligent Machinery” which he did not publish. The ideas on this report soon influenced others to reinvents some of the ideas.

In 1950 Turing went off track with the traditional definition of intelligence, by introducing a practical test for artificial intelligence known as the Turing test. “The Turing test involves three participants: a computer, a human interrogator, and a human foil. The interrogator attempts to determine, by asking questions of the other two participants, which is the computer. All communication is via keyboard and display screen. The interrogator may ask questions as penetrating and wide-ranging as he or she likes, and the computer is permitted to do everything possible to force a wrong identification. The foil must help the interrogator to make a correct identification. A number of different people play the roles of interrogator and foil, and, if a sufficient proportion of the interrogators are unable to distinguish the computer from the human being, then (according to proponents of Turing’s test) the computer is considered an intelligent, thinking entity.” (Britannica.com)

Towards to end of his life, Turing's homosexuality resulted in a criminal prosecution in 1952, when homosexual acts were still illegal in the United Kingdom. He accepted treatment with female hormones as an alternative to prison. He died in 1954, just over two weeks before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined it was suicide; his mother and some others believed his death was accidental.

Alan Turing made great contributions to what we have today, computer technology. Without his genius works and ideas, many of the technology that we have today may not have existed. Through his works, which we still use today, we can clearly say how much he has done for the development of computer science, as well as the initial beginning to the thought of machine consciousness, or artificial intelligence.

Celluar Automata

4. What is celluar automata and why does Stephen Wolfram think that it represents a “new kind of science”? Be sure to detail your answer.

Cellular Automata, also called "cellular spaces", "tessellation automata", "homogeneous structures", "cellular structures", "tessellation structures", and "iterative arrays," is a rule which is applied for physics, engineering, mathematics, and science. Here is a general outline of what this complicated concept is:

A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model studied in computability theory, mathematics, physics, complexity science, theoretical biology and microstructure modeling. It consists of a regular grid of cells, each in one of a finite number of states, such as "On" and "Off" (in contrast to a coupled map lattice). The grid can be in any finite number of dimensions. For each cell, a set of cells called its neighborhood (usually including the cell itself) is defined relative to the specified cell. For example, the neighborhood of a cell might be defined as the set of cells a distance of 2 or less from the cell. An initial state (time t=0) is selected by assigning a state for each cell. A new generation is created (advancing t by 1), according to some fixed rule (generally, a mathematical function) that determines the new state of each cell in terms of the current state of the cell and the states of the cells in its neighborhood. For example, the rule might be that the cell is "On" in the next generation if exactly two of the cells in the neighborhood are "On" in the current generation; otherwise, the cell is "Off" in the next generation. Typically, the rule for updating the state of cells is the same for each cell and does not change over time, and is applied to the whole grid simultaneously, though exceptions are known.

Various rules used for Cellular Automata

Basically, it is a code for computer cells which “side step” by time. There is a pattern to the cells movement. Wolfram has figured out how to anticipate the cells movement to further mathematics and engineering. Often times, he uses a snowflake as an example. A snowflake’s pattern is extremely complicated, just like computer cells.

            The reason why Wolfram believes that this is a new kind of science is because he figured out how to make this concept easier and actually able to use this program with engineering and science. By fully understanding and knowing how these cells work, it will be easier to read the patterns at work. He believes that with the use of these cells, we may be able to figure out how the complex patterns of natural selection, as well as genetics function. He specifically created a set of rules and laws for each and every aspect of the cellular automata so that if one rule does not apply, then another rule will override.

            Because of this very reason that there can be research done to provide new ways, and to find answers, he proceeds to call this a new kind of science. The very fact that he is able to use this new idea to perform various tasks and help him do unimaginable feats backs up his point. I personally believe that his idea on this new kind of science is very plausible and foundational. He may seem to be a bit arrogant in what he did; it shows how genius he is. There are some ideas that he proposed that will be a phenomenon in this world and I can surely say he is right in his claims. 

The Mummy and The Wolfman

3. What does the Mummy and the Wolfman archetypes represent in terms of Eastern and Western religions? Explain it via Eros and Thanatos. For instance, how does Buddhism view death differently than Christianity?

The Mummy represents Eastern religious beliefs of being reincarnated. A reincarnation is when the body dies but the soul lives on through other living bodies that does not discriminate human or animal. Eastern religions try to preserve the body, or use the term “capsule of the soul”. We see that humanity through the past have become determined to preserve the bought for immortality as was seen in the idea of the mummy. Egyptians believed that by preserving the body, immortality could be obtained. The physical bodies were preserved so that it would stay intact when it moved unto the afterlife. However, we see that the Egyptians’ attempt of achieving immortality was never achieved. This continued to grow and evolve and did not stop our drive to defeat death and obtain immortality. We see in Western societies the desire to prolong one’s life through scientific and medical advances. This can all relate to a concept called Eros. Eros, which is the Greek god of love but also in a philosophical sense the love of wisdom, can be shortly defined as a desire for eternal life. This belief is related to the Egyptians belief of preserving life, instead of fully accepting and believing the death of a person and continuing on.

Rather than the belief of reincarnation, or eternal life, Western religions believe in something rather on different path. They have a belief that death is not the end, yet an extension into another life. This belief continues unto Thanatos, which is, in short, the idea that “death is the goal of life.” Western society tends not to believe in reincarnation but that the body and the soul die together and move on to the afterlife, Heaven or Hell. Instead of being re-born into another body like what the eastern religions believe in, the soul only goes around once; which means that any wrong doing is taken more seriously considering there is only one chance and one life to do things right. Just like how the Western religion is the opposite of Eastern beliefs, Thanatos may be referred to as the direct opposite of Eros. The very fact that Thanatos is the drive to die shows how incredibly different the cultures are in their beliefs. Where the Wolfman comes into play in the Western religion is this. Instead of trying to prolong life, Wolfman desire to actually die and go unto the afterlife. Rather than continue on with his immortality, he wishes to die, which correlates with Thanatos.

One example of different views between the eastern and western religion is the view of death between Buddhism and Christianity. As stated earlier, Buddhism, being an eastern religion, believes in being reincarnated into a new body after death, which continues on and portrays eternal life. On the other hand, Christianity views death as a gateway to heaven or hell, which is the afterlife. Whatever a person does on earth will lead them to an eternal life after death.

The two main ideas that these two concepts are trying to portray is the idea of life and death. As complete opposites, the wolfman wants death, while the mummy wants eternal life. What we need to truly learn and understand is that we can neither inhabit internal, eternal life like the mummy nor experience death like the wolfman. Instead we are caught in this middle ground, because the thought of an internal death is nonexistent. “To experience absolute death is entirely impossible, because experience belongs to the category of consciousness and existence.” (The Mummy vs. the Wolfman) We cannot experience death and see what it feels like consciously so it is impossible to know the verdict to the afterlife and what brings death.

Littlewood’s Law of Miracles

2. Explain Littlewood’s Law of miracles and how it can explain extraordinary phenomena. Be sure to give two examples of it.

Littlewood’s law of miracles is a calculated theory that describes how many times we will be able to encounter a miracle in a given period of time. The short version of this theory may be found on Wikipedia which is nicely written as follows: “Littlewood defines a miracle as an exceptional event of special significance occurring at a frequency of one in a million. He assumes that during the hours in which a human is awake and alert, a human will experience one event per second, which may be either exceptional or unexceptional (for instance, seeing the computer screen, the keyboard, the mouse, this article, etc.). Additionally, Littlewood supposes that a human is alert for about eight hours per day.

As a result a human will in 35 days have experienced under these suppositions about one million events. Accepting this definition of a miracle, one can be expected to observe one miraculous occurrence within the passing of every 35 consecutive days – and therefore, according to this reasoning, seemingly miraculous events are actually commonplace.” With Littlewood’s reasoning, we can conclude that on average, we will experience one miracle per month.  

One interesting example is the one portray in the short video, “Voodoo Voodoo.” The story is that Prof. Lane and his family was on a much needed vacation. The oceans were flat, very nice scenery with great company as described in the video. Prof. Lane and his son decided to go surfing, but were disappointed to see that the ocean was calm, not showing any sign of great waves. Recalling his childhood, Prof. Lane decides to teach his son about a chant that he performed with his childhood friends which every time they chanted, would grant them with enormous ocean waves. After they chanted, they were able to experience an incredible wave that astonished them both. Believing that this voodoo trick is true, his son asked for one more chant. Being skeptical, Prof. Lane followed along and chanted with his son once again. Who could have thought, another enormous wave came right after the chant was over! What are the odds of getting two ginormous waves in a flat ocean? I would say slim to none. The very fact that they were able to experience these “miracles” is an example of the Law of miracles.

Another interesting personal example is when I was the bowling alley. As a junior high student and without any experience of bowling, I went along with my fellow childhood friends to go bowling for the first time. Without any expectation, I crossed my fingers on my first try. Who could have thought, I bowled a perfect strike! It was as if I won the lottery, full of excitement and joy. The next two times that I bowled, I crossed my fingers and once again, I was able to strike three times in a row. With amazement I was able to experience three miracles in a row.

 Having called for enormous waves, or being able to strike so many times may be more than one miracle, at the same time and to the same exact person. This may also be just a random occurrence of sequential events. Maybe those waves were also called for while they were chanting out loud. Perhaps I had hidden talents that I never knew. We never know how miracles will actually happen.

The interesting thing about miracles is that we tend to only remember the “hits” rather than all of the other “misses.” By “hits” I am trying to say when miracles actually do happen. For instance, people at casinos tend to rely on luck for their “hits” in winning money at slot machines. Because they only remember the times that they have won, they are forced to forget about all those times that they did not win; only looking forward to the eventual “hit” they are going to experience. It is quite interesting to see that because of the fact that we can only see the good things happening, we will forget about the bad things, in this case losing money, and pursue after the miracles. I believe that this type of mindset will lead people into dependence on miracles, which will help them continue in their journey of life.

Gumby Land Thinking

1. What is Gumby Land thinking? Give three illustrative examples of it.

Gumby Land thinking is simply the idea when a person creates a belief and many others believe in the same belief. This term comes from the popular animation made from clay, called Claymation "Gumby" which was a television show based on a little Claymation character named Gumby. The creator of Gumby, Art Clokey, apparently went to India for a short vacation while going through a difficult time period in his life, and brought along Gumby with him on his journey. He claimed that there was a change in his life after meeting a famous guru named Sathya Sai Baba. The guru sprinkled holy ashes on Gumby, and claimed that Gumby was an incarnation of spiritual love. The little character essentially had become a spiritual icon. Clockey then claimed that things started workout out for him after the encounter with the guru. Gumby became famous and popular once again, even helping Clockey sign an eight million dollar contract for the show. Back in India, where his experience first happened, a small shrine was put in place to the little character Gumby to worship it.

Here are some illustrations for Gumby Land thinking. When someone, without any clear evidence or basis, claims to have revived from the dead and people worshipped that person would be one form of Gumby Land thinking. Another would be when a house dog is somehow worshipped as the leader of this world because of this one claim from an unknown “prophet” that told everyone that dog will soon take over the world. Lastly, if a teacher were to say that the world is going to end in 10 days without any calculations or a foundational basis for that claim, and somehow many people believed it to be true. These are some examples of Gumby Land thinking.

We now realize that Gumby land thinking is meant to show how some people will believe anything. Personally for me, I thought that the very fact a shrine was put up for a little clay character that was human made was outrageous and insane. Some may argue that we cannot prove that Gumby is not the incarnation of spiritual love because it is not a scientifically testable concept. It was hard to think that some people actually believed what one person had said were the truth. This is where Gumby Land thinking’s idea shines. The concept that a person or group of people can just randomly bring up an idea and others will actually believe it because it sounds “good”, without being logical and giving any thought to the why and the origin of that idea, nor having any scientific proof to back up the idea. Gumby Land thinking sheds its lights in other religions as well. Because of the very reason that some idea cannot be proven, in this case that Gumby is an incarnation of spiritual love, scientists feel that then it doesn't exist. Because a person can come up with all sorts of outrageous ideas without a scientific foundation for its beliefs, it most definitely cannot be taken seriously.

Although I say when something cannot be scientifically proven, it is not true; we cannot generalize all religious beliefs as the same. There are clear differences between religion and Gumby Land thinking. Most definitely there are many religious ideas out there that can be clearly defined as made up and unreliable. However some religions and their ideas have much historical basis and unexplainable phenomena that even science cannot prove. The one main difference between religion and Gumby Land thinking is that religion has many phenomena and history that back up their beliefs, while Gumby Land thinking certainly do not have anything to “prove” its existence through anything. If a certain experience occurs that cannot be scientifically explained, it would not be right for scientists to say that it never happened because it cannot be proven or even tested. There are many phenomena and ideas out in the world that science certainly cannot explain… yet.  Because of our understanding right now of the world, we may say that many things have become thousand times easier to explain and actually relate. We cannot simply categorize some idea into “Gumby Land thinking” and say it is false just because it is just comical and outrageous, but consider it and actually take time to research and try to somehow prove its validity.

Week Eight: Mystical Philosophy

Film: Gumby Land

                It was incredible to see how people can believe such outrageous things. The fact that people believed “Gumby” was actually some kind of spiritual symbol was just… indescribably shocking and insane. I guess because I am not a believer of their religion, it may seem that I am being very bias in my thinking, but logically thinking, it just seems purely outrageous.

                I believe people need to research a little bit more before believing “nonsense” claims. They also call these claims “Gumby Land thinking” because of the relation it has to what happened with Gumby Land. All this nonsense that was not even researched or scientifically tested and the fact that people actually believed it, was incredibly shocking. People need to be a little more skeptic about certain things, such as these kinds of matters.

Film: Voodoo Voodoo

                The story on the chant was very miraculous. The fact that it actually happened and chance happened to be on your side when you chanted, was very interesting. If I were in the same situation, I would be shocked and in awe of this miraculous sight. Although I wouldn’t believe it completely, I would definitely be tempted to believe in this type of voodoo.

                Intended wishes really came into thought when watching this video. It is so true that we tend to remember only the times that our “voodoos” work, but not the countless misses that we encounter. Our minds force us to believe that these chants and rituals actually work by eliminating all of the misses from our memories, but letting only the times when these events actually happen stay. It was overall a very interesting and remindful video.

Film: The Mummy vs. The Wolfman

                Wow this video had so many abstract ideas. They were abstract but at the same time, very clear in what it was trying to say. For example, nonexistence is impossible because for us to be nonexistent, it would mean that we need to experience absolute death, which lead to consciousness because experience relies on awareness.

                All the concepts in the video truly influenced my thinking on life and death. It influenced me in a sense that complete and absolute death, as monks think is nonexistent, and that it is impossible to preserve life forever, in a physical sense. In order to be “immortal,” one has to be physically immune to death, which would be impossible because of the future circumstances that is about to come in a billion years. This was very interesting and thoughtful, making my brain constantly work as I was watching this video.

Film: The Zahir

               As the narrator said in the video, money is nothing more than just the future. A possible opportunity to play games, watch a movie, drink a cup of coffee, etc. Money, other than being physical, is more philosophical and abstract. It contains so many possibilities that cannot even be accounted for. This was the initial thought I received from the beginning of the video.

                Other than that, I did not know what the video was trying to portray, because it wasn’t very clear in its meanings. I tried very hard to think about the meanings each part of the video showed, but I could not think of anything special that really clicked in me. Other than the fact that Zahir are things that are left in the mind, haunting you for the rest of your life, I really didn’t know what the video was trying to tell me. It was too complicated for me to fully understand the true meaning behind the abstractness.

Film: Flame On

                “We simply don’t know what is our best or worst quality.” I thought this statement was very true, because the things that we believe is true at times may be viewed differently in another time. The example that the video used was great, of how a scientific breakthrough in astronomy was view as a criminal act, is now something of a past time. This shows how philosophy and our thoughts are continually growing and evolving.

                As for homosexuality, I am definitely against it, although my generation may evolve and change their thoughts on this concept.  The very fact that our bodies were made purely for a man and a woman’s sexual relations prove that fact that homosexuality is wrong. Even though many may argue against me with new ideas regarding this matter, I can clearly and most definitely state my opinion of homosexuality being wrong.

Film: Believer vs. Skeptic, Crop Circles

                This video showed me that no matter what kind of argument one makes, once someone makes up one’s mind, it is nearly impossible to change that person’s viewpoint on certain subjects. I believe in psychological terms, it is called confirmation bias, where even if there are definite evidence that something is not true or not right, that person who made an initial hypothesis will continue to pursue its theory.

                The argument the people had in this video was very pointless because they did not give up on their viewpoints. Neither one of them were trying to listen to each other, but just argue away into trying to prove their points, which was very pointless because there wasn’t any good communication and information getting through each other’s heads. I’ve learned that once a skeptic or a believer, it is nearly impossible to convince one to change ones mindset.