This article demonstrates that certain issues of philosophy of mind can only be explained via strict observance of the logical law of identity, that is, use of the term “consciousness” in only one meaning. Based on the understanding of consciousness as space in which objects distinguished by the subject are represented, this article considers problems such as the fixation of the consciousness level, correlation between consciousness and thought, between the internal and the external, and between consciousness and the body. It demonstrates the insufficiency of the reactive conception of action for the resolution of the hard problem of consciousness and the necessity of a transition to an active paradigm in which many issues in philosophy of mind would be formulated differently.
Among the philosophers and the educated audience the name of Sir Karl Popper is usually associated with the critical method, evolutionary epistemology, falsification as a criterion for the demarcation of scientific knowledge, the concept of the third world and with his dislike to dialectics and contradictions. This article is aimed to show in what way all these things are connected in the evolutionary researches of the philosopher and the new conceptions, which he contributed to studying the mechanisms of evolution. Also there is an attempt to comprehend the evolutionary views of Popper, test them for falsification, relate his epistemology with his claims, which he puts forward to the theory of objective knowledge evolution and show the obvious contradiction between them.
Alexander Boldachev is a Russian philosopher, futurologist (member of the Association of Futurologists of Russia), author of books and articles on universal evolutionism, biological evolution, philosophy of artificial intelligence, temporal ontology, epistemology, and logic. System architect and analyst of blockchain applications, author of articles on the problems of trust technologies, eGovernment, web 3.0, semantic modeling of complex systems, speaker of many specialized conferences.
The article contains an analysis of the philosophical foundations of the very idea of creating and implementing artificial intelligence via comparison by analogy with the hypothetical concept of "artificial life". The logical and conceptual unfoundedness of common definitions of artificial intelligence is demonstrated. The article offers the understanding of intelligence as an exclusively natural way of solving tasks, and not as a common function that can be implemented on the basis of other technologies. The conclusion is made about the inexpediency of direct replacement of a human with devices with artificial intelligence without a fundamental change in the basic principles of organizing field of activity. The questionableness of the idea of creating general artificial intelligence as a universal local device with a unified architecture in the presence of many specialized devices is substantiated. Doubts are expressed about the effectiveness of the application of evolutionary methods and learning procedures in the design of devices that solve tasks that are considered intelligent.
Abstract:Any low-level processes, the sequence of chemical interactions in a living cell, muscle cellular activity, processor commands or neuron interaction, is possible only if there is a downward causality, only due to uniting and controlling power of the highest level. Therefore, there is no special "hard problem of consciousness", i.e. the problem of relation of ostensibly purely biological materiality and non-causal mentality -we have only the single philosophical problem of relation between the upward and downward causalities, the problem of interrelation between hierarchic levels of existence. It is necessary to conclude that the problem of determinacy of chemical processes by the biological ones and the problem of neuron interactions caused by consciousness are of one nature and must have one solution.Keywords: consciousness, hard problem, downward causality.The hard problem of consciousness was formulated by David Chalmers as a necessity to complement human brain functioning with a conscious experience and subjective mental pictures. ("The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience" [1, p. 201]). This is definitely a stumbling rock for any theories of consciousness, based on the conception of causal closure of the physical: if brain can process all information, transform all the incoming signals into actions without any subjective feelings, then for what brain needs consciousness at all? Let us try to analyze the problem, using the example of computer analogy, i.e. let us focus our attention on a classical Chalmers' question: "why doesn't all this information-processing go on 'in the dark'?" [1, p. 203], in relation to a computer.At the first glance, this question, when asked about computer functioning, seems just trivial and good-for-nothing. Any "dummy" can understand that while, for example, converting a video file we can turn off the screen, PC-speakers, printer and after this a computer will successfully complete an information processing "in the dark" paying no attention to our actions. And at this point we can say that images on the screen (for example, a line which shows us the status of a process) are nothing more than "epiphenomena" -only the "accompaniment" (in Chalmers' terms) of a real information processing. There seems to be a complete analogy between the information processes in our brain and the mental picture in our consciousness on one hand and the information processing and its display on the screen on the other hand.But something compels us to resist the temptation of such an easy solution. There is something wrong with this analogy. We understand that a computer, which works only for itself, is a senseless thing, a thing-in-itself. We realize that everything we can interpret as an external "mental" manifestations of computer functioning: a video edit, a photo correction, a computer
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