Math and Logic Cannot Create Minds

LONGTEMPS ON : Longtemps on a pensé que l'informatique en général et les programmes d'intelligence artificielle en particulier allaient mélanger et présenter sous des angles neufs les concepts humains. Bref, on attendait de l'électronique une nouvelle philosophie. Mais même en la présentant différemment, la matière première reste identique : des id

Berkeley, as we have seen, thinks that there are logical reasons proving that only minds and mental events can exist. This view, on other grounds, is also held by Hegel and his followers. I believe this to be a complete mistake. Such a statement as “there was a time before life existed on this planet,” whether true or false, cannot be condemned on

When God’s existence has been proved, the rest proceeds easily. Since God is good, He will not act like the deceitful demon whom Descartes has imagined as a ground for doubt. Now God has given me such a strong inclination to believe in bodies that He would be deceitful if there were none; therefore bodies exist. He must, moreover, have given me the

The very critical thinking that Bacon and Descartes unleashed has shown that observation requires a vast, preexisting conceptual structure, and even reason’s most obvious assumptions (Descartes’s “clear and distinct ideas”) can be mistaken.