【视频】哲学：死亡 Death 03 Arguments for the existence of the soul, Part I
[i=s] 本帖最后由 autumnwater 于 2009-1-31 12:30 编辑 [/i]DeathV,h B&r&E P9e,O
Lecture 3 - Arguments for the existence of the soul, Part I
[b]Overview:[/b]
Erj1w6pm F!H)`
The lecture focuses on arguments that might be offered as proof for the existence of the soul. The first series of arguments discussed is those known as "inferences to the best explanation." That is, we posit the existence of things we cannot see so as to explain something else that is generally agreed to take place.
[b]Reading assignment:[/b]
h/c[0E*aJS
None assigned
mmS8y \'a
【观看视频】(因网络原因，有时需耐心等待5-10秒以上时间)
[flash]http://www.tudou.com/v/J16KntN_5es[/flash] [b]演讲文本[/b]
t0Sd0e(|;V+PkE O
Death: Lecture 3 Transcriptt&[Y dhS
January 23, 2007
Professor Shelly Kagan: Today we're going to take up the discussion where we left it last time. We were talking about two main positions with regard to the question, "What is a person?"
On the one hand, we have the dualist view; that's the view that we spent a fair bit of time sketching last meeting. The dualist view, according to which a person is a body and a soul. Or perhaps, strictly speaking, what we should say is the only part that's essential to the person is the soul, though it's got a rather intimate connection to a particular body. That's the dualist view. In contrast to that, we've got the physicalist view, according to which there are just bodies. A person is just a body, as we might put it. Now, the crucial point here, the point I was turning to as we ended last time, is that although a person on the physicalist view is just a body, a person isn't just any old body. A person is a body that has a certain set of abilities, can do a certain array of activities. People are bodies that can think, that can communicate, that are rational, that can plan, that can feel things, that can be creative, and so forth and so on. Jv;n&o%q!ypD ag
Now, we might argue about what's the exact best list of those abilities. For our purposes, I think that won't be crucial, and so I'll sometimes talk about this set of abilities without actually having a canonical list. Just think of them as the set of abilities that people have, the things that we can do that other physical objects--chalk, radios, cars--those things can't do. Call those the abilities that make something a person. To just introduce a piece of jargon, we could call those the P abilities, P for person. Or we could talk about the various kinds of ways--this is the physicalist way of thinking about it--according to the physicalist, a person is just a body that has the ability to fulfill the various P functions. And we can talk, then, about a person as a P-functioning body. Or we could say that a person is a body that is P-functioning..\1GR#p}a(Q&Z a'K-b
It's important to see that the idea is, although it's a body, it's not just any old body. Indeed, it's not just any old human body. After all, if you rip out your gun, shoot me in the heart, I bleed to death, we still have a human body in front of us. But we don't have a P-functioning body. We don't have a body that's able to think, a body that's able to plan, to communicate, to be creative, to have goals. So the crucial thing about having a person is having a P-functioning body.
Now, what's a mind on this view? On the physicalist view, it's still perfectly legitimate to talk about minds. The point, though, is that from the physicalist perspective, the best thing to say is, talk about a mind is a way of talking about these various mental abilities of the body. We nominalize it. We talk about it using a noun, the mind. But talk of the mind is just a way of talking about these abilities that the body has when it's functioning properly.
j iA ps [
This is similar, let's say, to talking about a smile. We believe that there are smiles. Physicalists don't deny that there are minds. Just like we don't deny, we all believe, that there are smiles. But what is a smile? Well, a smile is just a way of talking about the ability of the body to do something. This characteristic thing we do with our lips exposing our teeth and so forth. It's a smile, a rather dorky smile, but there's a smile. Now, if you were listing the parts of the body, you would list the teeth, you would list the lips, you would list the gums, you would list the tongue, but you wouldn't list the smile. So, should we conclude, as dualists, that smiles are these extra nonphysical things that have a special intimate relationship with bodies? Well, you could imagine a view like that, but it would be rather a silly view.2o u(~YrMR
lKB[ w9M5`s0f-n
Talk about a smile is just a way of talking about the body's ability to smile. There's no extra part. Even though we have a noun, the smile, that if you're not careful might lull you into thinking there must be a thing, the smile. And then you'd have all these metaphysical conundrums. Where is the smile located? It seems to be in the vicinity of the mouth. But the smile isn't the lips. The smile isn't the teeth. So it must be something nonphysical. No, that would just be a silly way to think about smiles. Talk of smiles is just a way of talking about the ability of the body to smile, to form a smile. That's an ability that we have, our bodies have.
Similarly, then, according to the physicalist, talk of the mind, despite the fact that we have a noun there, is just a way of talking about the abilities of the body to do various things. The mind is just a way of talking about the fact that our body can think, can communicate, can plan, can deliberate, can be creative, can write poetry, can fall in love. Talk of all of those things is what we mean by the mind, but there's no extra thing, the mind, above and beyond the body. That's the physicalist view. y\,aN$A,~W{_
iN+j1x?^%xf
So it's important, in particular, to understand that from the physicalist's point of view, the mind is not the brain. You might think, "Look, according to physicalists minds are just brains." And that wouldn't be a horrendously misleading thing to say, because according to the best science that we've got, the brain is the part of the body that is the seat or house or the underlying mechanical structure that gives us these various abilities. These P functions are functions that we have by virtue of our brain. So that might tempt you into saying the mind on the physicalist view is just a brain.
But we probably shouldn't say that. After all, if you shoot me, there's my corpse lying on the stage. Well, there's my brain. My brain is still there in my head. But we no longer have a person. The person has died. The person, it seems, no longer exists. Whether strictly that's the best thing to say or not is a question we'll have to come to in a couple of weeks. But it seems pretty clear that the mind has been destroyed, even though the brain is still there. So I think, at least when there's the need to be careful--maybe we don't normally have a need to be careful--but when there's the need to be careful, we should say, talk of the mind is a way of talking about the P-functioning of the body. Our best science suggests that a well-functioning body can perform these things, can think and plan and fall in love by virtue of the fact that the brain is functioning properly. That's the physicalist view.
On the dualist view, what was death? Death is presumably the separation of the mind and the body, perhaps the permanent separation, with the destruction of the body. What's death on the physicalist view? Well, there is no extra entity, the soul. The mind is just the proper P-functioning of the body. So, the mind gets destroyed when the ability of the body to function in that way has been destroyed. Death is, roughly, the end of this set of functioning. Again, this probably should be cleaned up and in a couple of weeks we'll spend a day or half period trying, to clean it up and make it somewhat more precise. But there's nothing mysterious about death from the physicalist point of view, at least about the basic idea of what's going on in death. P$w*A*K]7Fs G!Q`M
${)K f` C xG
I've got a stereo. Suppose I hold up my boombox for you and it's playing music. It's one of the things it can do. And I drop in on the ground, smashing it. Well, it no longer can function properly. It's broken. There's no mystery why it can't function once it's broken. Death is basically just the breaking down of the body, on the physicalist point of view, so that it no longer functions properly.
,[9M5s1C ] }H/f P
One other point worth emphasizing and sketching the physicalist view is this. So, as I said, physicalists don't deny that there are minds. Even though we say "we're just bodies," that doesn't mean that we're just any old body. It's not as though the physicalist view is, "we're bodies that have some illusion of thinking." No, we're bodies that really do think. So there really are minds. We could, on the physicalist point of view, call those souls. Just like there's no danger in talking of the mind from the physicalist perspective, there wouldn't be any serious danger in talking about a soul. And so, in certain contexts, I'm perfectly comfortable--in my physicalist moods, I am perfectly comfortable--talking about this person's soul. He's got a good soul, a bad soul, how the soul soars when I read Shakespeare, or what have you. MY M*x0n*XI&F]!vH
U r-t-QP ~@ }
There's nothing upsetting or improper about the language of the soul, even on the physicalist point of view. But in this class, just to try to keep us from getting confused, as I indicated before and I want to remind you, I'm going to save the word "soul"; I'm going to at least try to save the word "soul" for when I'm talking about the dualist view. So we might put it this way. The neutral term is going to be "mind." We all agree that people have minds, sort of the house or the seat of our personalities. The question is, "What is a mind?" The dualist position is that the mind is a soul and the soul is an immaterial object. So when I use the word "soul," I will try to reserve it for the metaphysical view, according to which souls are something immaterial. In contrast to that, we've got the physicalist view. Physicalists also believe in minds. But minds are just a way of talking about the abilities of the body. So physicalists do not believe in any immaterial object above and beyond the body that's part of a person. Just to keep things clear, I will say that physicalists, materialists, do not believe in souls. Because, for the purposes of this class, I'm going to reserve the word "soul" for the immaterialist conception of the mind. In other contexts--no harm in talking about souls. M7{Z0n_u y |
pfO3mry%g#[ p
So these are the two basic positions: the dualist view on the one hand, the physicalist view on the other. The question we need to turn to--I take it that just as the dualist view is a familiar one, so it's true that the physicalist view is a familiar one. Whether or not you believe it, you are familiar with the fact that some people believe it, or at least you wonder whether it's true. Does science require that we believe in the physicalist view or not?Y ob eR5T B)h._v
The question we want to turn to, then, is, "Which of these two views should we believe: the dualist position or the physicalist position?" And the crucial question, presumably, is, "Should we believe in the existence of a soul?" Both sides believe in bodies. As I say, the dualist position, as we're understanding it, is not a view that says there are only minds, there are no bodies. Dualists believe that there are bodies. They believe that there are souls as well as bodies. Physicalists believe there are bodies but no souls. So there's an agreement that there are bodies. Here is one. Each one of you is sort of dragging one around with you. There's agreement that there's bodies. The question is, "Are there anything beyond bodies?" Is there anything beyond the body? Is there a soul? Are there souls? That's the question that's going to concern us for a couple of weeks. lvDXq5E.? Fj F
If we ask ourselves, "What reasons do we have to believe in a soul?" we might start by asking, what reasons do we have to believe in anything? How do we prove the existence of things? For lots of familiar everyday objects, the answer is fairly straightforward. We prove their existence by using our five senses. We just see them. How do I know that there are chairs? Well, there are some chairs in front of me. Open my eyes, I see them. How do I know that there is a lectern? Well, I see it. I can touch it. I feel it. How do I know that there are trees? I see them. How do I know that there are birds? I see them. I hear them. How do I know that there are apples? I see them. I taste them. So forth and so on.!G6`5k M ?*Aqv0MVo
That approach pretty clearly isn't going to work for souls, because a soul--and again, we've got in mind this metaphysical view, according to which its something immaterial--isn't something we see. It's not something we taste or touch or smell or hear. We don't directly observe souls with our five senses.)i@(a1y.Pl
R%}5\cc[ K
You might wonder, well, don't I sort of directly observe it in myself that I have a soul? Although I guess there have been people who've made that sort of claim, it seems false to me. I can only ask each of you to sort of introspect for a second. Turn your mind's eye inward and ask. Do you see a soul inside you? I don't think so. I see things outside me. I feel certain sensations in my body, but it doesn't seem as though I observe a soul. Even if I believe in a soul, I don't see it. SNA4_ U h z
] Z.b&bR5i6V9A v)]
How do we prove the existence of things we can't see or hear or taste and so forth? The usual method, maybe not the only method, but the usual method is something like this. Sometimes, we posit the existence of something that we can't see so as to explain something else that we all agree takes place. Why do I believe in the existence of atoms? I don't see individual atoms. Why do I believe in the existence of atoms so small that I can't see them? Because atomic theory explains things. When I posit the existence of atoms with certain structures and certain sort of ways of interacting and combining and building up, when I posit atoms, suddenly I can explain all sorts of things about the physical world. So, I infer the existence of atoms based on the fact that doing that allows me to explain things that need explaining. This is a kind of argument that we use all the time. How do I posit--why do I believe in x-rays, even though I don't see them? Because doing that allows me to explain certain things. Why do I believe in certain planets too far away to be observed directly through a telescope? Because positing them allows you explain things about the rotation of the star or the gravitational fluctuations, what have you. We make inferences to the existence of things we can't see, when doing that helps us to explain something we can't otherwise explain. This pattern of argument, which is ubiquitous, is called "inference to the best explanation."
I want to emphasize this bit about "best explanation." What we're justified in believing are those things that we need, not simply when they would offer us some kind of explanation, but when they offer us the best explanation that we can think of. So look, why am I justified in believing in germs, various kinds of viruses that I can't see, or bacteria or what have you, that I can't see? Because doing that allows me to explain why people get sick. But there's other things that would allow me to explain that as well. How about demons? I could believe in demons and say, "Why does a person get sick and die? Well, it is demonic possession." Why aren't I justified in believing in the existence of demons? It's a possible explanation. But what we seem to be justified in believing is not just any old explanation, but the "best explanation." So we've got two rival explanations. We've got, roughly, germ theory and we've got demon theory. We have to ask ourselves, "Which of these does a better job of explaining the facts about disease?" Who gets what kinds of diseases? How diseases spread, how they can be treated or cured, when they kill somebody.E2A.V'XM3O
The fact of the matter is, demon theory doesn't do a very good job of explaining disease, while germ theory does do a good job. It's the better explanation. So we're justified in believing in germs, but not demons. It's a matter of inference, not just to any old explanation, but inference to the best explanation. All right, so, what we need to ask ourselves, then, is, "What about the soul?" We can't observe souls. But here's a possible way of arguing for them. Are there things that need to be explained that we could explain if we posited the existence of a soul, an immaterial object, above and beyond the body? Are there things that the existence of a soul could explain and explain better than the explanation that we would have if we had to limit ourselves to bodies? You might put it this way as sort of the easiest version of this kind of argument, for our purposes. Are there things about us that the physicalist cannot explain? Are there mysteries or puzzles about people that the physicalist just draws a blank, but if we become dualists, we can explain these features?
Suppose there was a feature like that, feature F. Then we'd say, "Look, although we can't see the soul, we have reason to believe in the soul, because positing the existence of a soul helps us to explain the existence of feature F, which we all agree we've got." Suppose it was true that you couldn't explain love from the physicalist perspective. But we all know that people do fall in love, but souls would allow us to explain that. Boom, we'd have an argument for the existence of a soul. It would be an example of "inference to the best explanation." Now, the crucial question, of course, is, "What's the relevant feature F?" Is there some feature that the physicalist can't explain and so we need to appeal to something extra-physical to explain it? Or the physicalist can only do a rotten job of explaining, like demon theory did? And then, if we were to appeal to something nonphysical, we would do a better job of explaining. If we could find the right F, and make out the argument, the physicalist can't explain it or does a bad job of explaining it and the dualist does a better job of explaining it, we'd have reason to believe in the soul. Like all arguments in philosophy, it would be a tentative argument. We'd sort of have some reason to believe in the soul until we sort of see what next argument comes down the road. But at least it would give us some reason to believe in the soul.
J~ X ?.l
What I want to do is ask, "What might feature F be?" Is there any such feature F? It's probably also worth underlining the fact that what I've really been doing is running through a series of arguments. "Inference to the best explanation" is not a single argument for the soul. It's rather the name for a kind of argument. Depending on what F you fill in the blank with, what pet feature or fact you're trying to explain by appeal to the soul, you get a different argument. So let's ask ourselves, "Are there things that we need to appeal to the soul in order to explain these things about us?" Here's a first try.
5Q0~D&r@0d
Actually, let me start by saying I'm going to distinguish two broad families of characteristics we might appeal to. We might say, one set of approaches focus on ordinary, familiar, everyday facts about us. The fact that we love, the fact that we think, the fact that we experience emotions, what have you--these are ordinary features of us. I'm going to start with those and then I'll turn, eventually, to another set of possible things that might need explaining, which we might think of as extraordinary, supernatural things. Maybe there are certain supernatural things about communication from the dead or near-death experiences that need to be explained in terms of the soul. We'll get to those, but we'll start with ordinary, everyday, hum-drum facts about us. Even though they're ordinary and familiar, it still could turn out that we need to appeal to souls in order to explain them./l.M,U]~'K5n3zs Jz
So, to start, how about this? Start with a familiar fact, which I've already drawn your attention to a couple of times, that you can have a body that's dead. You could have a corpse, and that's clearly not a person. It's not a living being. It's not a person. It doesn't do anything. It just lies there; whereas your body, my body is animated. I move my hands around, my mouth is going up and down, it walks from one part of the stage to the other part of the stage. Maybe we need to appeal to the soul in order to explain what animates the body. The thought would be, when the soul and the body have been separated--such the dualist explains--the soul has lost its ability to give commands to the body. So the body is no longer animated. So we've got a possible explanation of the difference between an animated and an unanimated or an inanimate body to it. Is the soul in contact of the right sort with the body? There's a possible explanation. You might say, "Look, the physicalist can't tell us that, because all the physical parts are still there when you've got the corpse, at least if it's a fresh corpse before the decay has set in. So, we need to appeal to the existence of a soul in order to explain the animation of bodies like the ones that you and I have."$y:^'` u/t;?
Well, I said I was going to run through a series of arguments but that doesn't mean that--the lights have just turned off; I don't know why--that doesn't mean that I think the arguments will all work. I announced on the first day of class that I don't, myself, believe in the existence of a soul. As such, it shouldn't be any surprise to you that what I'm going to do as we run through each of these arguments is to say, "I'm not convinced by it and here's why." Now since I think that the arguments I'm about to sketch--and I've just started sketching the first of is--fails I hope you'll think it over and you'll eventually come to agree with me, yeah, these arguments don't really work after all. But what's more important to me is that you at least think about each of these arguments. Is this a convincing argument for the existence of a soul? If you think so, what response do you want to offer to the objections that I'm giving? If this argument doesn't work, is there another argument for the existence of a soul that you think is a better one?
,eA s;Y M3}'r#F V"V+E
First argument, you need the soul in order to explain the animation of the body. From the physicalist point of view, of course, the answer is going to be "too quick." To have an animated body, you need to have a functioning body. It's true that when you've got a corpse, you've got all the parts there, but clearly they're not functioning properly. But all that shows us is, the parts have broken. Remember my stereo? I dropped my stereo. It falls on the stage. It doesn't work anymore. It stops giving off music. My boombox stops giving off music. That's not because previously--we had a CD inside of it, we had some batteries. We dropped the whole thing. It's not as though previously there was something nonmaterial there. We've got all the same parts there, but the parts are now broken. They're not connected to each other in the right way. The energy is not flowing from the batteries through the wires to the CD component. There's nothing mysterious from the physicalist perspective about the idea that a physical object can break. Although we need to offer a story about what makes the parts work when they're connected with each other and interacting in the right way, there's no need to appeal to anything beyond the physical.
|~2z ] WP@
Suppose we try to refine the argument. Suppose we say, "You need to appeal to the soul in order to explain not just that the body moves around, flails, but the body acts purposefully." We need something to be pulling the strings, to be directing the body. That's what the soul does, so says the dualist. In response, the physicalist is going to say, "Yes it's true that bodies don't just move around in random patterns." Human bodies don't do that. So we need something to direct it, but why couldn't that just be, one particular part of the body plays the part of the command module? Suppose I've got a heat-seeking missile which tracks down the plane. As the plane tries to dodge it, the missile corrects its course. It's not just moving randomly, it's moving purposefully. There had better be something that explains, that's controlling, the motions of the missile. But for all that, it could just be a particular piece of the missile that does it.$ZHD:w$Bd-l
More gloriously, we could imagine building some kind of a robot that does a variety of tasks. It's not moving randomly, but the tasks are all controlled by the CPU within the robot. The physicalist says we don't need to appeal to anything as extravagant as a soul in order to explain the fact that bodies don't just move randomly, but they move in purposeful ways that are controlled. e T-K v6g F
For each objection, there's a response. You could imagine the dualist coming back and saying, "Look, in the case of the heat-seeking missile or the robot for that matter, although it's doing things, it's just obeying orders. And the orders were given to it from something outside itself." Something programmed the robot or the missile. So don't we need there to be something outside the body that programs the body? That could be the soul.a!B2},Ou1A N
E Lr1sW i&d
That's a harder question. Must there be something outside the body that controls the body? One possibility, of course, is, why not say that people are just robots as well and we get our commands from outside? On a familiar religious view, God built Adam out of dirt, out of dust. Adam is just a certain kind of robot then. God breathes into Adam. That's sort of turning it on. Maybe people are just robots commanded from outside by God. But that doesn't mean that there's anything more to us than there is to the robot. That's one possible response. A different response, of course, is why couldn't we have robots that just build more robots? Then, if you ask, "Where did the commands come from?" the answer is, "When they were built, they were built in such a way as to have certain instructions that they begin to follow out." Just like people have a genetic code, perhaps, that gives us various instructions that we begin to follow out, or certain innate psychology or what have you.mnOm.U-P:_ ^gU9x(X
The argument quickly becomes very, very messy. The fan of the soul begins to want to protest, "Look, we're not just robots. We're not just robots with some sort of program in our brain that we're following. We've got free will. Robots can't have free will. So there's got to be something more to us than robots. We can't just be physical things." This is an interesting argument, and I think it's a new argument. We started with the idea you needed to appeal to souls in order to roughly explain why human bodies move, why we're animated or why we move in nonrandom ways. I think it's fairly clear that you don't need to appeal to souls in order to do that. Appeal to a physical body suffices, I think, to have an explanation as to the difference between an animated and an inanimate body, how bodies will move in nonrandom ways. If the brain is our CPU, then we'll behave in deliberate, purposeful ways just like a robot will behave in deliberate, purposeful ways. So this initial argument, I think, is not compelling.
bT _${CJ@(L
Still, we might wonder, what about this new argument? What about the fact that--We said there's a family of arguments, all of which have the general structure, inference to the best explanation, you need souls in order to explain feature F. Plug in a different feature F and you get a new argument. The one we started with--you need the soul to explain the animation of the body--that argument, I think, doesn't work. Now we've got a new one. You need the soul in order to explain free will. Let me come back to that argument later. It's a good argument. It's an argument well worth taking seriously, but let's come back to it later.
+H9my`&G0Y @
First, let's run through some other things that might be appealed to as candidates for feature F. Suppose somebody says, "Look, it's true that we don't need to appeal to souls in order to explain why bodies move around in a nonrandom fashion. But people have a very special ability"--and so the argument goes--"that mere bodies couldn't have, physicalists can't explain. That's the ability to think. It's the ability to reason. People have beliefs and desires. And based on their beliefs about how to fulfill their desires, they make plans. They have strategies. They reason about what to do. This tightly connected set of facts about us--beliefs, desires, reasoning, strategizing, planning--you need to appeal to a soul"--so the argument goes--;"to explain that. No mere machine could believe. No mere machine has desires. No mere machine could reason."%[/S'U'_i(^
|;q X#y.M U @`+d R
It's easy to see why you might think that sort of thing when you stick to simple machines. It's pretty clear that there are lots of machines that it doesn't seem natural to ascribe beliefs or desires or goals or reasoning to. My lawnmower, for example, doesn't want to cut the grass. Even though it does cut the grass, it doesn't have the desire. It doesn't think to itself, "How shall I get that blade of grass that's been eluding me?" So it's easy to see why we might be tempted to say no mere machine could think or reason or have beliefs or desires.{1| |TW lx
That argument's much less compelling nowadays than I think it would have been 20 or 40 years ago. In an era of computers with quite sophisticated computer programs, it seems, at the very least, natural to talk about beliefs, desires, and reasoning and strategizing.
So suppose, for example, we've got a chess-playing computer. On my computer at home I've got a program that allows my computer to play chess. I, myself, stink at chess. This program can beat me blind. I move my bishop, the computer moves its queen. What do we say about the computer? Why did the computer move its queen, or virtual queen? Why did the computer move its queen? The natural thing to say is, it's worried about the fact that the king is exposed and it's trying to block me by capturing my bishop. That is what we say about computer-playing programs. Think about what we're doing. We're ascribing desires to the program. We're saying it's got an ultimate desire to win the game. A certain subsidiary desire is to protect its king, to capture my king. A certain other subsidiary desire is, no doubt, to protect its various other pieces along the way. It's got beliefs about how to do that by blocking certain paths or by making other pieces on my side vulnerable. It's got beliefs about how to achieve its goals. Then, it puts those combinations of beliefs and desires into action by moving in a way that's a rational response to my move. It looks as though the natural thing to say about the chess-playing computer is, it does have beliefs. It does have desires. It does have intentions. It does have goals. It does reason. It does all of this. It's rational to this limited extent. It's only able to play chess. But to that extent, it's doing all these things and yet we're not tempted to say, are we, that the computer has a nonphysical part? We can explain how the computer does all of this in strictly physical terms. Of course, once you start thinking of it this way, it's natural to talk this way across a variety of things that the computer may be trying to do.
z Z5O w9i
It's perfectly open to you, as dualists, to respond by saying, "Although we personify the computer, we treat it as though it was a person, as though it had beliefs and desires and so forth, it doesn't really have the relevant beliefs and desires, because it doesn't have any beliefs and desires, because no physical object could have beliefs and desires." In response to that, I just want to say, "Isn't that just prejudice?"C/IJ2jj,hb T
Of course, it is true that if we simply insist no physical object could really have beliefs or desires, then it will follow that when we are tempted to ascribe beliefs and desires to my chess-playing computer, we're falling into an illusion. That will follow once we assume that no physical object has beliefs or desires. But what reason is there for saying it has no beliefs or desires? What grounds are there for withholding ascriptions of beliefs and desires to the computer? That's far from obvious.
]#P1@SN(]
Here's a possibility. Desires, at the very least, seem to be, at least in typical cases, very closely tied to a series of emotions. You get excited when you're playing chess at the prospect of capturing my queen and crushing me. You get worried when your pieces are threatened. Of course, more generally, you get excited, your heart goes pitter-pat, when your girlfriend or boyfriend says they love you. Your stomach sinks, you have that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, when you get a bad grade on a test.
Maybe what's really going on is the thought that there's an aspect of desire that has a purely behavioral side, that's moving pieces around in a way that would make sense if you had this goal. And maybe machines can do that. But there's an aspect of desires, the emotional side, that machines can't have, but we clearly do have. Maybe we want to build that emotional side into talk of desires.
So maybe if we want to say machines don't have a mental life and couldn't have a mental life, what we really mean is no machine could feel anything emotionally. So let's distinguish. Let's say there's a way of talking about beliefs and desires which is just going to be captured in terms of responding in a way that makes sense given the environment. Maybe computers and robots could do that. But there's clearly a side of our mental life, the emotional side, where we might really worry, could a robot feel love? Could it be afraid of anything? W czpN!k"}8|
4h r+a4@1c*[d&L
Again, our question was, "Do we need to appeal to souls to explain something about us?" The physicalist says "no"; the dualist says "yes."
E` |@ G5~I{8{{ R
If what we mean is the mental, but that the aspect, the behavioral aspect of the mental, where even a chess-playing computer probably has it, then that's not a very compelling argument. The physicalist will say, "Look, that aspect of the mental is pretty clear. We can explain it in physical terms." But let's just switch the argument. What about emotions? Can a robot feel emotions? Could a purely physical being fall in love? Could it be afraid of things? Could it hope for something? The latest version of our argument then is, "People can feel emotions. But if you think about it, it's pretty clear no robot could feel emotions. No merely physical thing could feel emotions. So there must be more to us than a merely physical thing." That's the argument we'll start with next time.DN_tu6E
[end of transcript] [i=s] 本帖最后由 autumnwater 于 2009-1-31 14:55 编辑 [/i]
[b]课本Texts:[/b]
1 Plato, [i] Phaedo[/i]N A2P#lv5u]9q
2 John Perry, [i]A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality[/i] y4H A;e-U x r-l
3 Leo Tolstoy, [i]The Death of Ivan Ilych[/i]uF _h#B R b
j;E S'}k1M6h8B
[b]Course Packet:[/b]-z o$n5S1M*[ Q
2A(h)Ll8eC:MI/H I t
1 Barnes, Julian. "The Dream." [i]In History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters.[/i]Kx q;^ i5D B#z;~ @$I!o3_F
2 Brandt, Richard. "The Morality and Rationality of Suicide."[i] In Moral Problems.[/i] Edited by James Rachels. New York: Harper & Row, 1979. i&dD#K$Xj9W5P j6jR
R;fjg f,D$\hS8Z
3 Edwards, Paul. "Existentialism and Death: A Survey of Some Confusions and Absurdities." [i]In Philosophy, Science and Method: Essays in Honor of Ernest Nagel.[/i] Edited by Sidney Morgenbesser, Patrick Suppes and Morton White. New York: St. Matrin's Press, 1969. pp. 473-505+jY)W0Z+n6p5j
oG:q {w4p
4 Feldman, Fred. "The Enigma of Death."[i] In Confrontations with the Reaper: A Philosophical Study of Nature and Value of Death.[/i] Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. pp. 56-71t\,mX L/c1{"C2t$G
5 Hume, David. "On Suicide." [i]In Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary[/i].@Z6V-u,`%D
Iy7jj {J!{%`1v
6 Kaufmann, Walter. "Death." In [i]The Faith of a Heretic. [/i]New York: New American Library, 1959. pp. 353-376
7 Kaufmann, Walter. "Death Without Dread." [i]In Existentialism, Religion, and Death: Thirteen Essays[/i]. New York: New American Library, 1976. pp. 224-248
8 Martin, Robert. "The Identity of Animal and People." [i]In There are Two Errors in the the Title of This Book: A Sourcebook of Philosophical Puzzles, Problems, and Paradoxes.[/i] Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2002. pp. 223-226&aJ l/i B+x
9 Montaigne, Michel de. "That to Philosophize is to Learn to Die." [i]In The Complete Essays.[/i]
10 Nagel, Thomas. "Death."[i] In Mortal Questions.[/i] New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979. pp. 1-10 Raq J K4E
8pyY3X9O;l2N
11 Rosenberg, Jay. "Life After Death: In Search of the Question."[i] In Thinking Clearly About Death.[/i] Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1983. pp. 18-22'qp n s0lE!X-s(x
12 Schick, Theodore and Lewis Vaughn. "Near-Death Experiences." In [i]How to Think About Weird Things[/i]. New York: McGraw Hill, 2005. pp 307-323
13 Swift, Jonathan. [i]Gulliver's Travels[/i], Part III, chapter 10.
$W r9nP rD~[
14 Williams, Bernard. "The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality." In[i] Language, Metaphysics, and Death[/i]. Edited by John Donnelly. New York: Fordham University Press, 1978. pp. 229-242 听得我晕乎乎的，还是不知道人到底有没有soul！ 讲义有没有？ 这个问题真有意思，我们没办法那么快得出答案的咯。 不好意思，没注意到，这一课程应该没有讲义。 SHELLY那个想法确实挺有意思——当没办法使用经验主义（感官）证明为真时，如果找到一个能够使表征状态被合理解释的理论，那么该理论在这种条件下可被定义为真。我作为一个纯血统的理科生表示怀疑——建立理论系统的条件是推出该理论的基础为真，如果建立该理论的基础真实性是不确定的——就PLATO在理想国里也说过感官主义非真实确定的，那么在此基础上推论出的结论无真实性可言 [b] [url=http://galaaa.com/redirect.php?goto=findpost&pid=7818&ptid=774]8#[/url] [i]sdrabbitz[/i] [/b] v J,zo+{&mH,Dy\
J&oq$c ] V:`5LS7^
理论最最根本的基础都是经验 或者说不可证的 又没人能把这个翻译下 楼上划一下哪个地方需要翻译，全翻太累了 [i=s] 本帖最后由 aaa7878 于 2009-8-13 15:33 编辑 [/i]/nd:vk;TxDY
~,^k)n @V7ln
灵魂有没有？不知道最终的答案是什么？是未知？ wS![] w:B;h
我想，说有，说没有，可能都是对的，也可能都是错的。问题是从哪个角度看。
从现象看，应该有。但所谓的有，也不过是承认有此变化的过程。就是人是生生死死的，并不是断灭的。
但，这跟本质是不同的。我不知道西方是如何看这本质的，是绝对精神？绝对精神是什么？
东方看本质，是心性。心性，不是灵魂。灵魂是现象。一切现象，都是从本质中生出来的。一切唯心造。
但是，说人死如灯灭，这样的观念肯定是错的。这应该可以为濒死经验、轮回事例、催眠等不同的途径所间接证明。另一个途径，就是神通。 不知道为什么，明明缓冲了，但是在这个网页上就是播放不了，还是要自己到土豆去看 试着翻译了一点点。1st time...
今天我们将继续我们上一次的讨论。上节课我们谈到了关于“人是什么”的两种主要立场。
我们上一次花了不少时间来概述了一种二元论的观点。一方面，这种二元论观点的根据是——人是有身体和灵魂构成的。或者严格来说，虽然灵魂与某一个特定的身体紧密结合在一起，我们应该说它是人必不可少的一个部分，。这就是二元论的观点。与此相反的是，还有一种声称人就是身体的物理主义者的观点，正如我们所说的，人只是一副身体。现在，像上次那样，关键在于尽管在物理主义观点看来人只是身体，而我要转而论证人不仅仅只是一副衰老的身躯。人是一种具有一整套特定能力、能够进行一系列特定活动的的身体。人是能思考、能交流、明事理、能计划、能感受、能创造的身体。
现在，我们可能要争论到底怎样的一种关于如上能力的列表是最好的。对我们的目的来说，我认为这并不重要，所以我今后将在没有权威的列表的情况下谈论这一系列能力。我们只是来试想一下，把这些当做人们所具备，而其他诸如粉笔、收音机、汽车等实物（物质客体）所不具备的能力。把这些能力称为人之所以为人的原材料。为了仅仅介绍一条术语，我们就把他们成为P能力——P代指人。我们还可以用各种方式来谈论他们（那些能力）——（比方说）这是一种物理主义者的对他的看法，据此，人不过是一种拥有完成大量P功能能力的身躯。我们还可以把人称为是一种P在运行中的身体。或者说，身体在P条件运行下就是人。
身体虽然只是身体，但关键是我们不能把它只是看做一具衰老的躯壳。事实上，它不是任何一具衰老的人类身躯。毕竟，如果你突然拿出你的枪猛射在我胸口，我就会流血至死，但在我们面前我们仍然有一具人类的身体，但它已经没有了P功能。我们已经没有了能思考、能计划、能创造、有目标的身体。所以，人之为人的关键在于有一个P功能的身体。
那么，在这一观点下，什么是精神？在物理主义者的观点下，谈论它仍然是相当合情合理的。关键在于从这种观点看来，谈论精神就是谈论这些身体所具有的大量心理能力（心智）——这是一种最佳说法。我们把它给名词化了。我们用名词“精神”来谈论它。但是我们说它是精神，其实就是在当身体运行正常时，我们谈到这些能力的一种表达方式。 not just people but all the other animals have souls, right? but how about apple?{)C[7m]o|)I
you could compare human souls with other stuffs, but you still cannot see or touch it. 小生发表一下我个人的看法
我是从心理学看的
人脑其实很复杂 人的感觉大部分都和人脑挂钩A,_o S ]
实验表明，刺激脑部不同部分，人会有不同的感觉：有的地方刺激后人会看到颜色，;有的刺激后人的某个器官挥动........2J k9G V l4M!m;u
所以我认为，人的soul就在人脑中。其实soul不是孤立存在。脑死soul死。（I think) 好视频 学习学习 9楼的的确没错，最直接的例子就是几何学的那几个公理。但是就这个问题来说，还是回到shelly的问题，甚至连灵魂存在这个“公理”都不是能够经验感觉的。 我想来翻译下。。。。。 接着14楼译的9Y q e Xn a X Io
现在，我们将讨论如何最好的将这些能力罗列出来。但就我们而言，这并不是至关重要的，因此我也不会死板的完全按照大纲来讲述它。只是把它们看做一种人类所具有的一种能力，那些客观的物体——粉笔，收音机，汽车所不能做的事情我们人类却可以完成.我们把这种能力叫P-- abilities，P代表着人。这只是从物理主义的角度来思考，当然我们还有很多的其他角度，人是有P-- abilities来完成不同的事情的肉体。And we can talk, then, about a person as a P-functioning body. Or we could say that a person is a body that is P-functioning.@'u6rP0N!JJ e2pD Jk
%j R:b dX CgG
重要的是：尽管它是一个肉体，但它并不是陈旧的，事实上，它也不是任何陈旧的人的肉体。毕竟如果你向我开枪，我流血过多而死，可我的肉体还存在。但这存在着的肉体并不具有P--functioning。 那个可以思考，计划，交流，创造，实现自己理想的的肉体已经消亡了。因此对于人来说最重要的是拥有一个 P-functioning body。
#SJcdJN5i2|g
4@s9p#e-M0P1QM+a,B/b @
现在，就这个观点而言你们有什么想法？以物理主义的观点的来看，交流思想是近乎完美的，这一点，不过，是从物理主义的角度来看的，最好的说法是交流思想是人类所具有的一种精神层面的能力。我们把它名词化，头脑。但心灵的谈话，只是对这些能力时，身体已经完全正常的说话方式。
P7_q"[5t a [ p0|
类似的，比方说，对于一个微笑，我们相信，有笑容，物理主义并不否认这个观点，就像我们也不否认一样但究竟什么是微笑呢？它是无数肉体可做的事情中的一个。微笑就是嘴唇分开露出牙齿等等。当事物变得机械化时，那么它是最愚蠢的。例如只是机械的露出牙齿而没有任何情感的微笑是最愚蠢的，但我们仍然不能否认它是一个微笑。现在让你们列出身体的部位，你会说牙齿，嘴唇，牙龈，舌头，但你不会说微笑。因此我们可以总结出，因为二元论，我们可以想：微笑是那种与我们的肉体有着亲密关系的非物质的东西吗？你们可能会有这种相当愚蠢的看法。 听得好费劲啊 **** 作者被禁止或删除 内容自动屏蔽 ****
页:
[1]