The Future: Mind and Machine Merged

Abstract

I start with this quotation, because in this Chapter I intend to turn back and examine one of our initial questions from a slightly different angle. In addition to the question of the possibility of thinking machines, we have also had at the back of our minds the question of whether we are such machines. In this chapter, I want to consider some ideas in cognitive science and AI that either dispute the legitimacy of the mind-machine distinction, or else blur the boundary between mind and world (or between ‘psychical’ and ‘fleshly’ impulses). The topics I shall discuss are all regarded as ‘speculative’ (as is appropriate for a Chapter concerned with the future of a discipline). The extent to which this tag is intended as derogatory is not clear — I leave it to the reader to adopt their own view on this matter — but I shall treat the topics in ascending order of ‘speculativity’.

Soul and body, body and soul — how mysterious they were! There was animalism in the soul, and the body had its moments of spirituality … Who could say where the fleshly impulse ceased, or the psychical impulse began?

Oscar Wilde (1890) The Picture of Dorian Gray