dualism
- 1. Terminator 2 - Judgement Day Arnie is sent back in time to protect Sarah and John Connor as it is John who in the future leads a rebellion against the rise of the machines and ultimately defeats them. Cybernet sends a Terminator (Cyborg) back in time to assassinate either Sarah or John in order to avoid this scenario. John Connor of the future sends back the original terminator in order to defend and protect Sarah and himself so as to ensure the survival of the human race and defeat the rise of the machines.
- 2. Cyborg Specifications Watch video clip T2 (1-10mins) What does our cyborg need in order to function and carry out its mission? Intelligence – What does this mean? Able to perceive their environments Categorise perceptions e.g. friendly, dangerous, useful, human, non-human Therefore able to acquire information and utilise it in an appropriate way to fulfil mission - Purpose Mental states of sort able to process all the available data in order to function and fulfil the desire of protecting John and Sarah. It would seem our Cyborg possesses intelligence
- 3. Dualism Is it possible for our Cyborg to have intelligence? – If intelligence belongs to things that have minds and minds are purely non-physical Cyborgs are purely physical – Steel and circuitry Therefore they are just machines and cannot have intelligence – They are just programmed automta They cannot have a mind ie thoughts and experiences According to dualists only humans are composed of both physical and non-physical things - mind and body Arnie just couldn’t exist - nor much else science fiction for that matter Descartes would laugh his socks off if he watched The Terminator
- 4. But for the sake of Science Fiction lets Criticise Dualism Dualism is the belief that the mind is a non-physical thing – It has... No size or shape No mass No colour or smell Not made up of atoms Doesn’t obey laws of nature
- 5. It seems the mind can only be known by what it is not According to Dualists the one thing a mind is, is... That which allows us to think and reason, to be conscious and to do all the clever stuff that separates humans from everything else. However, it can be argued that this is an explanation of what the mind does and not what the mind is No dualist has really been able to do that
- 6. Furthermore.... If the mind is non-physical – How can it have any effect on the physical world? How can it affect or be affected by anything in the material/physical world. Think of it in terms of snooker balls colliding – they have shape, size, momentum, energy, velocity and substance. Yet for the dualist minds have no shape or size and therefore not the sorts of things that can causally interact with physical things. The problem for the dualists is that minds and bodies very clearly do interact. Dualism is probably the most refuted philosophical view of all time It gives us no idea what minds are, and no idea of what they are supposed to do.
- 7. The case for Materialists According to Dualists the one thing a mind is, is... That which allows us to think and reason, to be conscious and to do all the clever stuff that separates humans from everything else. Ok well nothing new here it’s just that this mind is the same as the brain The brain is what produces thought, reason, conscious experience etc through a complex interaction of chemical, electrical and physical processes.
- 8. Materialism The view that we are purely physical things and nothing more. Complex creatures With extra large brains Descendents from apes in the evolutionary chain We all have physical origins in sperm and ovums – difficult to see the non-physical mind here Therefore going back to our killer Cyborg – It would be possible to build such a machine capable of thought, intelligence etc All we need to do is learn to arrange matter in the right way Computer AI will enable this to happen