网范文：“ The imperfect observer: Mind, machines and materialism” 大多数当代科学家物理主义者,认为宇宙是完全物理,从这个角度来看,专注于一个二元论者最激烈的地区/物理主义的辩论，思维的本质。写这篇哲学范文中,想到的第一个问题是为什么是我?我是设计师和理论家，在计算机通信领域的工作。我感兴趣的是人类交流的复杂性,我们如何保持真实性，我们如何形成自己的印象，只想到一方面是我们感知的缺陷。
人类不是完美的观察员，我们的感知和解释世界的方式有一定的局限性。受到这些限制使我们不能做的非常好。,如何能够真正了解这个世界，英语论文网站，英语论文范文，在传统的西方二元,少强调观察,因为最感兴趣的是什么，思想、精神、上帝等等。假定不可见,那么本质上是不可知的或可以理解只有通过启示或直觉。下面的范文进行详述。
Introduction
I was asked to write this on dualism from the perspective of the “natural sciences”1 . Most contemporary scientists are physicalists, believing that the universe is entirely physical, and it is from this perspective that I am writing2 . I am going to focus on one of the most contested areas in the dualist/physicalist debate: the nature of mind. When asked to write such a , one of the first questions that comes to mind is “Why me?” What can I add to the immense literature on this subject? What fresh and useful perspective can I bring? I am designer and theorist working in the field of computer mediated communication. I am interested in the complexity of human communication, in questions such as how do we maintain truthfulness when deception can be so profitable? and How do we form impressions of each others identity? One theme that runs through this work is the imperfectness and subjectivity of our perception. It is this concept that I am exploring in this .
Physicalism3 states that the world, including the mind, is entirely physical, and that, in theory, it should be entirely knowable through non-metaphysical methods. But human beings are not perfect observers and our ways of perceiving and interpreting the world have inherent limitations. And perceiving the extent of these limitations is one of the things we may not be able to do very well. In this I am looking at the observer – at the question of, in a physicalist view of the world, how capable are we of really understanding that world.
In traditional western dualistic, there is less emphasis on observation because much of what is of greatest interest – the mind, the spiritual, god, etc. – is assumed not to be observable, either inherently unknowable or understandable only through revelation or intuition. The physicalist view places great emphasis on observation; in the scientific framework a world that is wholly physical should be ultimately fully observable. Of course, that view has been challenged, most notably in physics, where quantum indeterminacy says that at the quantum scale a system is inherently indeterminate and not completely measurable; the uncertainty is inherent in the physics of the system.
Here, I am focusing on something else – not whether the external world (at the classical rather than quantum level) is knowable, but whether it is knowable by us; that is, what are the limitations of observation and comprehension that are inherent to being human – in particular, in the case of trying to understand the questions of mind and consciousness in a physicalist framework This is in three sections. I first outline some of the problems in the dualist/physicalist debate about the nature of mind, next I discuss some findings from neuroscience and the insights they provide about our subjective perception, and finally I look at the quest to build intelligent (seeming) machines and its philosophical and practical implications regarding the knowability of minds.
Dualism, physicalism and the limits of perception
Summary: Beyond the argument about the actual nature of the universe (and/or the mind) is further debate about what are the value and the limits of observation. One can be a physicalist and still believe that not everything is humanly observable and deducible: the world may be entirely material, yet our perceptual and/or cognitive systems are too limited to fully understand it, indeed perhaps at best allowing only a tiny and distorted glimpse of it. Outside of the mind, there is the world of external reality. It may be a wholly material world, propelled and bounded by physical laws, or it may be a world of both material and spiritual essences, propelled by the hands of God or gods, but whatever form it has, it constitutes an external and unshakeable reality, one that people may observe and conjecture about, but the shape of their beliefs does not shape the basic structure of the universe4 . Rather, these beliefs may be right or wrong, depending on how accurately they model the external reality, though owing to the limitations of human observation, this may not be possible to settle decisively.
The limitations of human observation are both perceptual and cultural. Perceptually, we are capable of observing a limited band of phenomenon: things that can be heard (sonic vibration in the frequency range of 20 to 20,000 Hz), things that can be seen (light waves in the frequencies of about 380 to 740 nanometers), felt, smelt or tasted (and, perhaps, intuited, depending on one’s belief in both the existence of non-material phenomena and, if that exists, in the human ability to in some way perceive it). Even at the level of basic perception it must be noted that what we see is a cognitive interpretation of the external: a particular wavelength of light provides us with a sensation of seeing the color green, but the experience of that physical phenomenon as color is a feature of our perceptual system, not of the light.
Other species and indeed other individuals may see it differently; presumably, other creatures could experience that wavelength of energy in a completely different modality, rendered like our experience of taste or sound or something unimaginable to us. Beyond this perceptual subjectivity is cultural subjectivity: the worldview in which we were raised and the beliefs of the people around us profoundly affects our interpretation of what we experience. This state of affairs leaves people with a broad menu of possible beliefs. One may believe that the universe is purely material or that it is dualistically both material and spiritual; in either case one may believe that humans are capable of fully understanding it or one may believe that vast parts of it are forever outside of human comprehension.
In the last five or six hundred years tremendous new scientific understandings of the universe, of nature, and of mankind have uprooted the existing world views (Baumer 1977). Pre-scientific beliefs are generally quite intuitive, based on everyday observation. They evolved to support and conform to the culture’s ideals: free from the strict constraints of scientific inquiry, a society with minimal knowledge shapes its world-view based on what it wishes for, its desires and fears. By contrast, worldviews based on scientific observation are constrained by what is: they do not (at least in their ideal form) take into account how we would like things to be, but only what actually exists. The Ptolemaic universe, with its round Earth in the center of an encompassing sphere of heavenly bodies not only matched intuitive observations (we are standing still, the sun is rising and setting around us), it also fit into a world view in which the Earth and its life-forms and especially Man, was the focus and purpose of creation.
Our current astronomically correct model, in which the Earth is a rather insignificant rock revolving around a star of no particular distinction which is hurtling through infinite space, is not very intuitive as one looks up to the sky, nor is it nearly as deferentially adulatory regarding man’s place in the universe. Galileo removed Man from the center of the universe. Darwin unseated us from the pedestal of special creation and put humans firmly within a chain of being. Yet the same science that has demythologized the position of Man in the universe has simultaneously given humanity enormous technological powers. We may no longer see ourselves in the center of the universe, but we have been able to build rockets, split atoms and reach the moon. We may be humbled to learn that 96% of the human genome is shared by chimpanzees, yet we now have invented antibiotics, insecticides, polyvinylchloride, and are beginning to invent new creatures from DNA on up. In the coming century the brain/mind sciences – including neuroscience, cognitive science and artificial intelligence – will be the force behind the next wave of cultural upheaval.
For these sciences will change how we think about the mind and our understanding of what thought is. They will change our beliefs about why we behave in particular ways, why we have the ethics we do, and whether we will continue to have them in the future or not. And these sciences will bring about enormous new powers. We will be able not only to measure brain activity, but also to affect thought by stimulating the brain. We will be able to create machines that can behave with great subtlety and sophistication, blurring the boundary between man and machine. And we may be faced with seeing the limitations of our understanding – with having science discover how locked into our limited subjective mind we are13.()
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