You don’t know what I’m thinking

THE PROBLEM OF OTHER MINDS

“You don’t know what I’m thinking.” (Leaving on a jet plane)

This, of course, raises the old philosophical problem of the knowledge of other minds. Two factors are involved: (1) The nature of the knower’s knowledge and (2) The content of the known’s mind, what that other mind happens to be thinking. Obviously, the two factors are closely related and often difficult to isolate.

(1) The nature of the knower’s knowledge is, by definition, ambiguous. It is not factual empirical knowledge like that we have, for example, with the knowledge we have about photosynthesis, the knowledge of plant nutrition. Such knowledge is acquired through scientific observation and experiment. However, it is precisely the absence of such scientific observation and experiment which precludes us from having such factual, empirical knowledge in respect to other minds. Why is this so?

The knowledge we have of other minds is acquired not by direct and unambiguous observation but rather by inference. In other words, we rely on linguistic usage, the tone of the communication, facial expression where possible and so on, of the other mind and such inferential reasoning is open to doubt and even possible refutation as was the case with “Leaving on a jet plane’s” boyfriend. His inferential process failed him. He did not know that she was, um, leaving on a jet plane.

(2) The content of the known’s mind, as viewed from the perspective of the knower, is therefore by its nature elusive. But more than this, the knower is not even sure if the known has a mind at all.

Take the Turing Test, named after the inventor of the computer, Alan Turing. The Turing Test involves several computers manned by living human beings who would direct questions at another computer “manned” only by a software program. The threshold of the Turing Test requires that at least 30% of those manning the various computers believe that they are communicating with another mind, another human being. Unlike the chess software program “Deep Blue” which defeated the international chess champion Boris Spatsky – Deep Blue declined a re-match challenge from Spatsky – which everyone knew was a software program, with the later program “Eliza” it was different. In responding to the group’s questions Eliza nearly but not quite, passed the Turing Test. But that was long ago. Given the sophistication of software programming since that time the question, in the present case – whether the boyfriend knew that “Leaving on a jet plane” had a mind at all – remains open.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

Eliza

THE PROBLEM OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF OTHER MINDS (II): THE NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

“You don’t know what I’m thinking.” Leaving on a Jet Plane

Listening to a BBC broadcast from Stockholm this morning featuring an interview with three 2012 Nobel laureates in science, the interviewer demanded to know whether there was anything in science which was as yet unknown, something along the lines of Donald Rumsfeld’s “known unknowns.” The science laureate slowly told her that receiving the Nobel did not mean that he knew the answer to everything but that yes, there was something science had yet to discover and that was the nature of consciousness. I could have added that this was true but also that science will never discover it because science deals in things, in objects, and natural processes but consciousness is not an object, not a thing. It is a process but not a natural process as known through the empirical methods of science. Though MRIs science might detect neurological activity in the upper cortex this merely indicates the presence of consciousness, not consciousness itself. In other words, consciousness and the objects of scientific exploration reside at different ontological levels. So how does this relate to the bitch, “You don’t know what I’m thinking?”

Thinking presupposes possession of some concept of consciousness as a necessary but not sufficient condition. Conscious must be present in order for thinking to take place but such thinking and consciousness are not identical. Thinking is a particular manifestation of consciousness. It is an activity, a process which is focused and purposeful, not simply a state of passively registering the incoming data of the senses. But can some specification of thinking be given, particularly in the case of the knowledge of other minds? I believe it can.

In thinking, of acquiring knowledge of other minds, we rely on a number of background clues or particulars which are tacit, subsidiary and background but which serve as the “launching pad” of conscious thought, i.e., thinking, which is directed, focal and vectorial. Thinking, in other words, is a “from-to” process. “Leaving on a Jet Plane’s” boyfriend integrates the clues that point to her thinking by relying subsidiarily on the clues she gives by word, inflection, expression and so on. That is the “from-pole” of his thinking which he then directs to her thinking, the “to-pole,” the object of his thinking. However, while her thinking is the object of his explicit awareness, such awareness always has its roots in those tacit particulars which he has integrated for that purpose. A wholly explicit activity, one possessing no tacit roots, of thinking is incoherent.

But “Leaving on a Jet Plane” is right. Her boyfriend may not be able to correctly identify a specific item of her thought, i.e., that she will be leaving on a jet plane. He has may be mistaken since he has only knowledge of the general configuration of her thinking, not the specific items which constitute it at a specific time. Nonetheless, he has engaged in thinking, that purposeful integration of particulars bearing upon the object of his thought, that is, “Leaving on a Jet Plane’s” thought. He has acquired a knowledge of another’s mind, a knowledge which is always tentative and provisional and subject to correction but knowledge nonetheless.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

THE PROBLEM OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF OTHER MINDS (III): AN ACADEMIC’S KNOWLEDGE OF THE BITCHERS’ MINDS

“Shut Up Buttdumpling!” Microwaved HampzZzter (aka “The Dribbler”) 12/26, 4:22PM

What knowledge, if any, do academics have of the minds of those on Bitch? In the latest issue of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain’s Newsletter (December 12, 2012) Christopher Martin has written “Philosophy of education and social media,” a short essay on the relevance of social media to the academic community in general and, by extension, the minds of those participating in such social media of which Bitch, of course, is one. What does Christopher have to say?

Knowing that academics generally scorn the minds of those on social media – and rightly so in some cases (see “The Dribbler” above) – Christopher starts out saying, “Okay, before you start jumping all over the idea of ‘social media’ on conceptual grounds, just hear me out.” What Christopher wants to do is to take social media seriously, to see how, as an intellectual community, what it has to offer by way of “contributing to our discourse on education policy and practice.” He doesn’t want to offer a grand vision of that discourse but rather to offer “some general points that I hope are of use to others.” Okay, so what are those points?

His first point is that “Marshall McLuhan was right.” What does Christopher mean? He means that McLuhan’s insight – “The Medium is the Message” is embodied in “electronic media (which) would externally manifest the internal properties of a mind as he saw it.” Relating Christopher’s insight to Bitch, one can see that it indeed externally manifests the internal properties of a “mind” like “The Dribbler’s”. The Dribbler, of course, has no mind and is unable to contribute to our discourse on educational policy and practice but this is not unusual on Bitch.

Christopher’s second point is to note that the participants
on social media “have no attention span.” This is clearly the case with Bitch generally and with “The Dribbler” in particular. However, he says that philosophers of education should not “dumb down or pander”. Rather they should “communicate in an effective manner” as, you will agree, I am doing now.

His third point is equally obvious, that is that “Social media are public”. The lesson, in spite of the mindless remarks like that of “The Dribbler,” is that philosophers should not be angry. “Be casual. Have a playful tone. Do not rant.” There you go. His fourth point, that “Social media are networked” is obvious again, otherwise how would the mindless “The Dribbler” have popped up on Montrealman’s commentaries?

Finally, in good essay form, Christopher returns to his initial point in respect to McLuhan, that is that “Social media are the message,” meaning that is not the substance of the message which is usually empty of cognitive content – see “The Dribbler’s” comment above once again – but rather the fact that it is in the form of a brief comment, in the present case a comment on a Bitch. In other words, it is form rather than substance which is paramount, a fact which “The Dribbler’s” mindless comment has clearly demonstrated.

So Christopher has laid out the rough guidelines for philosophers of education commenting on Bitch, a feat which I for one am extremely grateful.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!