PREVIEW-Episode 21: What Is the Mind? (Turing, et al)
Summary: Discussing articles by Alan Turing, Gilbert Ryle, Thomas Nagel, John Searle, and Dan Dennett.<br> This is a 31-minute preview of our vintage 2 hr, 20-minute episode which you can buy at <a href="http://partiallyexaminedlife.com/product/ep-21-mind-turing-et-al/" target="_blank">partiallyexaminedlife.com/store</a> or <a href="http://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2010/06/28/ep21-mind-citizen/" target="_blank">get for free</a> with PEL Citizenship (see <a href="http://partiallyexaminedlife.com/membership" target="_blank">partiallyexaminedlife.com/membership</a>). You can also purchase the full episode in the <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/episode-21-what-is-mind-turing/id8676970182" target="_blank">iTunes Store</a>: Search for "Partially Examined Turing" and look under "Albums."<br> What is this mind stuff, and how can it "be" the brain? Can computers think? No? What if they're really sexified? Then can they think? Can the mind be a computer? Can it be a room with a guy in it that doesn't speak Chinese? Can science completely understand it? ...The mind, that is, not the room, or Chinese. What is it like to be a bat? What about a weevil? Do you even know what a weevil is, really? Then how do you know it's not a mind? Hmmmm? Is guest podcaster Marco Wise a robot? Even his wife cannot be sure!<br> We introduce the mind/body problem and the wackiness that it engenders by breezing through several articles, which you may read along with us:<br> 1. Alan Turing’s 1950 paper “<a href="http://loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html" target="_blank">Computing Machinery and Intelligence.</a>"<br> 2. A chapter of Gilbert Ryle's 1949 book The Concept of Mind called "<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/8911778/Gilbert-Ryle-Descartes-Myth" target="_blank">Descartes' Myth.</a>"<br> 3. Thomas Nagel's 1974 essay "<a href="http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/nagel_nice.html" target="_blank">What Is It Like to Be a Bat?</a>"<br> 4. John Searle's Chinese Room argument, discussed in a 1980 piece, <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20071210043312/http://members.aol.com/NeoNoetics/MindsBrainsPrograms.html" target="_blank">"Minds, Brains and Programs." </a><br> 5. Daniel C. Dennett's "<a href="http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/quinqual.htm" target="_blank">Quining Qualia</a>."<br> Some additional resources that we talk about: David Chalmers's <a href="http://consc.net/papers/nature.html" target="_blank">"Consciousness and its Place in Nature, "</a> Frank Jackson's <a href="http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/epiphenomenal_qualia.html" target="_blank">"Epiphenomenal Qualia"</a>, Paul Churchland's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262530740/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theparexalif-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399377&creativeASIN=0262530740" target="_blank">Matter and Consciousness,</a>Jerry Fodor's "<a href="http://philosophy.ucsd.edu/faculty/rarneson/Courses/fodorphil1.pdf" target="_blank">The Mind-Body Problem</a>," Zoltan Torey's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/026251284X/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theparexalif-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399377&creativeASIN=026251284X" target="_blank">The Crucible of Consciousness,</a>and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's long <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/" target="_blank">entry on the Chinese Room argument</a>.<br> End Song: "No Mind" from 1998’s <a href="http://marklint.com/FJTalbum.html" target="_blank">Mark Lint and the Fake Johnson Trio</a>; the whole album is now free online.<br>
