The Demon's Sermon on the Martial Arts

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 5/22/2015

When the famous warrior Minamoto no Yoshitsune was a young boy going by the name of Ushiwaka-maru, his father, Yoshitomo, was assassinated by the Taira clan. Taira no Kiyomori, head of the Taira, allowed the child to survive on the grounds that he be exiled to the temple on Mount Kurama and become a monk. But one day in the Sojo-ga-dani Valley, Ushiwaka encountered the mountain's tengu, Sojobo. This spirit taught the boy the art of swordsmanship so that he might bring vengeance on the Taira.

Accept Everything, resistance is suffering


It revolves around the Buddhist sentiment that attachment to one’s status in life whether rich or poor, famous or infamous is the source of suffering. "But rather, following good and bad fortune or prosperity and decline as one meets them, and calming enjoying oneself in the midst of creation and change: this is the greatest happiness under heaven". So "If I'm blown by the wind, I'll tumble along following the wind. If the winds stops, I'll stop too. And won't act contrary to things. just don't fight things and be happy with what you encounter". "I just entrust my body to the Creator and don’t intrude my own willfulness while I’m here. This is knowing the general drift of the Way." because "a person who worries over something he can do nothing about is an extraordinary fool."

In one section a dying man is talking with his family priest and says: "The ten thousand things are born from emptiness and return to emptiness." No need for sorrow of passing of anything.

No-Mind


"The common man hasn't cut yet through the root of confusion of life and death. This always lies concealed and acts as a cover over his spirit. When a thought stirs even a little, what has been concealed arises, emotions, attachments and desires". "When there is something in the mind, the chi is obstructed and your body can't respond with harmony".

“When you gamble for tiles, you are skillful. When you gamble for your belt buckle, you begin to hesitate; and when you gamble for gold, you get confused. Your skill is the same, but you get cautious because you value something outside yourself. When you do this you become awkward inside."

"The moon in the water, is a metaphor for when you can move and respond with no-mind, though there is a reflection, the moon reflects itself without thought. reflected in ten thousand streams or not, this doesn't add to the moon or subtract from it".

"Technique is cultivated by means of chi and chi uses the mind as a vehicle to put form into use. As you become skillful in the technique, the chi harmonizes. And when this has completely penetrated the mind and no more doubts remain, technique and principle become one, your spirit is settled, and practical application is completely unobstructed. The technique responds to the circumstances naturally". "Simply, without thinking, without doing anything, move by following your natural perception and your movement will have no form. And when you have no form, there is nothing in heaven and earth that could be your opponent"

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تهذيب الأخلاق لابن مسكويه

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 5/21/2015

النفس

فإن تشوقها إلى ما ليس من طباع البدن وحرصها على معرفة حقائق الأمور الآلهية وميلها إلى الأمور التي هي أفضل من الأمور الجسمية وإيثارها لها وإنصرافها عن الأمور واللذات الجسمانية يدلنا دلالة واضحة إنها من جوهر أعلى وأكرم جدا من الأمور الجسمانية. لأنه لا يمكن في شيء من الأشياء أن يتشوق ما ليس من طباعه وطبيعته ولا أن ينصرف عما يكمل ذاته ويقوم جوهره فإذا كانت أفعال النفس إذا إنصرفت إلى ذاتها فتركت الحواس مخالفة لأفعال البدن ومضادة لها في محاولاتها وإراداتها فلا محالة إن جوهرها مفارق لجوهر البدن ومخالف له في طبعه.

وأيضا فإن النفس وإن كانت تأخذ كثيرا من مبادىء العلوم عن الحواس فلها من نفسها مباد أخر وأفعال لا تأخذها عن الحوس ألبتة وهي المبادىء الشريفة العالية التي تنبني عليها القياسات الصحيحة. وذلك إنها إذا حكمت إنه ليس بين طرفي النقيض واسطة فإنها لم تأخذ هذا الحكم من شيء آخر لم يكن أوليا. وأيضا فإن الحواس تدرك المحسوسات فقط وأما النفس فإنها تدرك أسباب الإتفاقات وأسباب الإختلافات التي من المحسوسات وهي معقولاتها التي لا تستعين عليها بشيء من الجسم ولا آثار الجسم. وكذلك إذا حكمت على الحس إنه صدق أو كذب فليست تأخذ هذا الحكم من الحس لأنه لا يضاد نفسه فيما يحكم فيه ونحن نجد النفس العاقلة فينا تستدرك شيئا كثيرا من خطأ الحواس في مبادىء أفعالها وترد عليها أحكامها. من ذلك أن البصر يخطىء فيما يراه من قرب ومن بعد أما خطأه في البعيد فبادراكه الشمس صغيرة مقدارها عرض قدم وهي مثل الأرض مائة ونيفا وستين مرة يشهد بذلك البرهان العقلي فتقبل منه وترد على الحس ما شهد به فلا يقبله. وأما خطأه في القريب فبمنزلة ضوء الشمس إذا وقع علينا من ثقب مربعات صغار كحلل الأهواز وأشباهها التي يستظل بها فإنه يدرك بها الضوء الواصل إلينا منها مستدير افترد النفس العاقلة عليه هذا الحكم وتغلطه في إدراكه وتعلم إنه ليس كما يراه وتخطأ البصر أيضا في حركة القمر والسحاب والسفينة والشاطىء ويخطأ في الأساطين المسطرة والنخيل وأشباهها حتى يراها مختلفة في أوضاعها. ويخطىء أيضا في الأشياء التي تتحرك على الإستدارة حتى يراها كالحلقة والطوق ويخطىء أيضا في الأشياء الغائصة في الماء حتى يرى أن بعضه أكبر من مقداره ويرى بعضها مكسورا وهو صحيح وبعضها معوجا وهو مستقيم وبعضها منكسرا وهومنتصب.

فيستخرج العقل أسباب هذه كلها من مباد عقلية ويحكم عليها احكاما صحيحة وكذلك الحال في حاسة السمع وحاسة الذوق وحاسة الشم وحاسة اللمس. أعني حاسة الذوق تغلط في الحلو تجده مرا عند الصد أو أشبهه وحاسة الشم تغلط كثيرا في الأشياء المنتنة لا سيما في المنتفل من رائحة إلى رائحة فالعقل يرد هذه القضايا ويقف فيها ثم يستخرج أسبابها ويحكم فيها أحكاما صحيحة.

والحاكم في الشيء المزيف له أو المصحح أفضل وأعلى رتبة من المحكوم عليه وبالجملة فإن النفس إذ علمت أن الحس صدق أو كذب فليست تأخذ هذا العلم من الحس ثم إذا علمت أنها قد أدركت معقولاتها فليست تعلم هذا العلم من علم آخر لأنها لو علمت هذا العلم من علم آخر لاحتاجت في ذلك العلم أيضا إلى علم آخر وهذا يمر بلا نهاية فإذا علمها بأنها علمت ليست بمأخوذ من علم آخر البتة بل هو من ذاتها وجوهرها أعني العقل وليست تحتاج في إدراكها ذاتها إلى شيء آخر غير ذاتها ولهذا ما قيل في أواخر هذا العلم. إن العقل والعاقل والمعقول شيء واحد لاغيرية شيء يتبين في موضعه. فأما الحواس فلا تحس ذواتها ولا ما هو موافق لها كل الموافقة.

وقد تبين للناظر في أمر هذه النفس وقواها أنها تنقسم إلى ثلاثة أعني:
  1. القوة التي بها يكون الفكر والتمييز والنظر في حقائق الأمور
  2. والقوة التي بها يكون الغضب والنجدة والإقدام على الأهوال والشوق إلى التسلط والترفع وضروب الكرامات
  3. والقوة التي بها تكون الشهوة وطلب الغذاء والشوق إلى الملاذ التي في المآكل والمشارب والمناكح وضروب اللذات الخسية
وهذه الثلاث متباينة ويعلم من ذلك ان بعضها إذا قوي أضر بالآخر وربما أبطل أحدهما فعل الآخر وربما جعلت نفوسنا وربما جعلت قوى لنفس واحدة والنظر في ذلك ليس يليق بهذا الموضع وأنت تكتفي في تعلم الأخلاق بأنها قوى ثلاث متباينة تقوي إحداهما وتضعف بحسب المزاج أو العادة أوالتأدب.

  1. أما الحكمة فهي فضيلة النفس الناطقة المميزة وهي أن تعلم الموجودات كلها من حيث هي موجودة وإن شئت فقل إن تعلم الأمور الإلهية والأمور الإنسانية ويثمر علمها بذلك أن تعرف المعقولات أيها يجب ان يفعل وأيها يجب أن يغفل.
  2. واما العفة فهي فضيلة الحس الشهواني وظهور هذه الفضيلة في الإنسان يكون بأن يصرف شهواته بحسب الرأى أعني أن يوافق التمييز الصحيح حتى لا ينقاد لها ويصير بذلك حرا غير متعبد لشيء من شهواته،
  3. وأما الشجاعة فهي فضيلة النفس الغضبية وتظهر في الإنسان بحسب إنقيادها للنفس الناطقة المميزة واستعمال ما يوجبه الرأى في الأمور الهائلة أعني أن لا يخاف من الأمور المفزعة إذا كان فعلها جميلا والصبر عليها محمودا.
  4. فأما العدالة فهي فضيلة للنفس تحدث لها من إجتماع هذه الفضائل الثلاث التي عددناها وذلك عند مسالمة هذه القوى بعضها للبعض وإستسلامها للقوة المميزة حتى لا تتغالب ولا تتحرك لنحو مطلوباتها على سوم طبائعها ويحدث للإنسان بها سمة يختار بها ابدا الإنصاف من نفسه أولا ثم الإنصاف والإنتصاف من غيره وله.
الأقسام التي تحت الحكمةْ:  الذكاء. الذكر)عدم النسيان). التعقل. سرعة الفهم وقوته صفاء الذهن سهولة التعلم. وبهذه الأشياء يكون حسن الإستعداد للحكمة فأما الوقوف على جواهر هذه الأقسام فيكون من حدودها. وذلك أن العلم بالحدود يفهم جواهر الأشياء المطلوبة الموجودة دائما على حال واحد وهو العلم البرهاني الذي لا يتغير ولا يدخله الشك بوجه من الوجوه.الأقسام التي تحت الحكمةْ:  الذكاء. الذكر)عدم النسيان). التعقل. سرعة الفهم وقوته صفاء الذهن سهولة التعلم. وبهذه الأشياء يكون حسن الإستعداد للحكمة فأما الوقوف على جواهر هذه الأقسام فيكون من حدودها. وذلك أن العلم بالحدود يفهم جواهر الأشياء المطلوبة الموجودة دائما على حال واحد وهو العلم البرهاني الذي لا يتغير ولا يدخله الشك بوجه من الوجوه.

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Property Dualism

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 5/15/2015

Property dualism asserts that an ontological distinction lies in the differences between properties of mind and matter, and that consciousness is ontologically irreducible to neurobiology and physics. Although the world is constituted of just one kind of substance — the physical kind — there exist two distinct kinds of properties: physical properties and mental properties.It asserts that when matter is organized in the appropriate way (i.e., in the way that living human bodies are organized), mental properties emerge therefore it could be affected by any rearrangement of matter.



Epiphenomenalism

 
Whilst Cartesian dualism argues that there is a two-way interaction between mental and physical substances, not all forms of dualism agree. Epiphenomenalism argues that mental events are caused by - or are a by-product of - physical events, but that the interaction is one-way: mental events cannot affect physical ones. One of the curious side effects of this theory is that it implies that decision making is not a mental event. Apart from flying in the face of most common sense attitudes.

Biological Naturalism

Emergentism is the idea that increasingly complex structures in the world give rise to the "emergence" of new properties that are something over and above (i.e. cannot be reduced to) their more basic constituents.  Applied to the mind/body relation, emergent materialism is another way of describing the non-reductive physicalist conception of the mind that asserts that when matter is organized in the appropriate way (i.e., organized in the way that living human bodies are organized), mental properties emerge.

Searle holds that the brain is, in fact, a machine, but the brain gives rise to consciousness and understanding using machinery that is non-computational. On the level of neurons (Micro Level), which we search, there is no emergence of consciousness, but on the scale of the whole brain (Macro Level), consciousness emerge. If neuroscience is able to isolate the mechanical process that gives rise to consciousness, then Searle grants that it may be possible to create machines that have consciousness and understanding. However, without the specific machinery required, Searle does not believe that consciousness can occur.

Anomalous Monism or Eliminative Materialism or Predicate Monism


According to which there can be no strict psycho-physical laws which connect mental and physical events under their descriptions as mental and physical events. However, all mental events also have physical descriptions. It is in terms of the latter that such events can be connected in law-like relations with other physical events. Mental predicates are irreducibly different in character (rational, holistic and necessary) from physical predicates (contingent, atomic and causal). Eliminative materialists maintain that such intentional predicates as believe, desire, think, feel, etc., will eventually be eliminated from both the language of science and from ordinary language because the entities to which they refer do not exist. The only argument that Davidson gives for this point is that mental phenomena, like beliefs and desires, are subject to constraints of rationality, and rationality has “no echo in physics.”

Step 1: There are causal relations between mental phenomena and physical phenomena.
Step 2: Wherever there are events related as cause and effect they must fall under strict, deterministic causal laws.
Step 3: But there are no such strict deterministic causal laws relating the mental and the physical. In Davidson’s terms, there are no psycho-physical laws.
Step 4: Conclusion. All so-called mental events are physical events.

The first principle follows from Davidson's view of the ontology of events and the nature of the relationship of mental events (specifically propositional attitudes) with physical actions. Davidson subscribes to an ontology of events where events (as opposed to objects or states of affairs) are the fundamental, irreducible entities of the mental and physical universe. His original position, as expressed in Actions and Events, was that event-individuation must be done on the basis of causal powers. He later abandoned this view in favour of the individuation of events on the basis of spatio-temporal localization, but his principle of causal interaction seems to imply some sort of, at least, implicit commitment to causal individuation. According to this view, all events are caused by and cause other events and this is the chief, defining characteristic of what an event is.

Ted Honderich has challenged the thesis of anomalous monism, forcing, in his words, the "inventor of anomalous monism to think again". To understand Honderich's argument, it is helpful to describe the example he uses to illustrate the thesis of AM itself: the event of two pears being put on a scale causes the event of the scale's moving to the two-pound mark. But if we describe the event as "the two French and green things caused the scale to move to the two-pound mark", then while this is true, there is no lawlike relation between the greenness and Frenchness of the pears and the pointers moving to the two-pound mark.

Honderich then points out that what we are really doing when we say that there is "no lawlike relationship between two things under certain descriptions" is taking certain properties and noting that the two things are not in relation in virtue of those particular properties. But this does not mean they are not in lawlike relation in virtue of certain other properties, such as weight in the pears example. On this basis, we can formulate the generalization that Honderich calls the Nomological Character of Causally-Relevant Properties. Then we ask what the causally relevant properties of the mental events which cause physical events are.

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Dualism

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 5/13/2015

Dualism, is the view that that there are two separate and distinct substances that make up a human being: mind and body. In religious terms, the mind is sometimes equated with the soul.

Monism, because it describes a belief in one substance, can be used in two distinct ways:

To describe the view that only matter, or the physical body, exist (materialism).
To describe the view that only mind, or spirit, exist (idealism).

Platonic Dualism


Aristotle shared Plato's view of multiple souls and further elaborated a hierarchical arrangement, corresponding to the distinctive functions of plants, animals and people: a nutritive soul of growth and metabolism, that all three share; a perceptive soul of pain, pleasure and desire, that only people and other animals share; and the faculty of reason, that is unique to people only. In this view, a soul is the hylomorphic form of a living organism. Thus, for Aristotle, all three souls perish when the living organism dies. For Plato however, the soul was not dependent on the physical body; he believed in metempsychosis, the migration of the soul to a new physical body

Substance Dualism


Descartes concluded that the mind was a completely distinct substance from matter because:

  1. Matter is measurable, has dimensions, can be sensed, divided, destroyed and altered. Mind, however, can almost be defined as the opposite of this, it is invisible, without dimensions, immaterial, unchanging, indivisible and without limit.
  2. Descartes cannot doubt the existence of his mind, but can doubt the existence of his body. Since what I cannot doubt cannot be identical to what I can doubt (by Leibniz's Law), mind and body are not identical and dualism is established.

Descartes’ response was to suggest that the two substances meet in a part of the brain called the pineal gland. His reasons for choosing this seem to have been that the gland in central (unlike the other parts of the brain which are bilateral – mirrored on each side) and that it does not occur in animals. This latter fact was understood by Descartes as relating to the presence of a soul in humans and not in animals, whom he considered mere machines. However, modern research has also found a similar gland in mammals and lower vertebrates.

Critiques

  1. How can conscious experiences like your pain exist in a world that is entirely composed of physical particles and how can some physical particles, presumably in your brain cause the mental experiences? (This is called the “mind-body problem.”).
  2. How can the subjective, insubstantial, nonphysical mental states of consciousness ever cause anything in the physical world? How can your intention, not a part of the physical world, ever cause the movement of your arm? (This is called the “problem of mental causation.”) 
  3. No one has ever succeeded in giving an intelligible account of the relationships between these two realms.
  4. Argument from brain damage, in instances of some sort of brain damage, it is always the case that the mental substance and/or properties of the person are significantly changed or compromised. If the mind were a completely separate substance from the brain, how could it be possible that every single time the brain is injured, the mind is also injured? Indeed, it is very frequently the case that one can even predict and explain the kind of mental or psychological deterioration or change that human beings will undergo when specific parts of their brains are damaged.
The correlation and dependence argument against dualism begins by noting that there are clear correlations between certain mental events and neural events (say, between pain and a-fiber or c-fiber stimulation). Moreover, as demonstrated in such phenomena as memory loss due to head trauma or wasting disease, the mind and its capacities seem dependent upon neural function. The simplest and best explanation of this dependence and correlation is that mental states and events are neural states and events and that pain just is c-fiber stimulation.

Searle says:
Notice that these arguments still leave dualism as a logical possibility. It is a logical possibility, though I think extremely unlikely, that when our bodies are destroyed, our souls will go marching on. I have not tried to show that this is an impossibility (indeed, I wish it were true), but rather that it is inconsistent with just about everything else we know about how the universe works and therefore it is irrational to believe in it.

Occasionalism

 
Following Descartes’ death, some philosophers – such as the Frenchman, Nicholas Malebranche (1638 – 1715) – recognised this problem and tried to address it whilst still holding to the dualist view. Malebranche’s suggestion was that neither body nor mind were causally related, but were in fact connected by divine interaction. So, whenever we wish to lift an arm, for instance, God must intervene to cause the body to obey (similarly, whenever the body feels pain, God must cause that sensation to occur in the mind). But problems arise: if God is responsible for all seeming causal interactions, is he also responsible for evil deeds? This would make him the unwitting agent in murders, crimes, etc.

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Functionalism

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 5/12/2015

Some people said that the fact that neurons were either firing or not firing was an indication that the brain was a binary system, just like any other digital computer. Thus came the idea, mental states are computational states of the brain. But when we consider the computational operations, the manipulation of symbols in accord with formal rules, a computing machine performs, we‘abstract’ it from its underlying base, i.e whatever the hardware structure and the software operating this hardware, calculations are always the same. For example, a Function like showing a character moving from point X to Y, is realized by (Software (Windows+Game Engine) and Hardware) and Android and iPhone and so on. So in theory, same calculations (functions) can be done on whatever hardware. This is known as "multiply realizablity". So, pain, for example, is unlikely to just be C-fiber stimulation (or some other appropriate brain state), because octopuses and other such creatures can probably feel pain, despite their not having C-fiber stimulatory capacity. This led to the development of functionalism, which promised to unify physically different phenomena under the banner of causal (functional) similarity.

But what is the relation between functions (computations) and the underlying brain, neurons and synapses (software and hardware)? A functionalist prefers to say that computational processes are ‘realized’ in material systems but not dependent on them. The functionalist’s point is just that higher-level properties such as being in pain or computing the sum of 7 and 5 are not to be identified with,‘reduced to’, or mistaken for their realizers (the lower material level). Individual neurons are not conscious, but portions of the brain system composed of neurons are conscious. We may compare the brain with other organs, such as the eye. The individual parts that make up the eye all serve the function of seeing. For instance, the parts of the eye allow us to see, but the individual state of each part is not what we mean by "seeing".

Various reasons against reductive versions of physicalism have led many to accept some form of “nonreductive physicalism”, the view that despite everything being dependent on the physical, it is not the case that mental properties are identical to physical properties. Minds are not identifiable with brains; but neither are minds distinct immaterial substances mysteriously linked to bodies. Minds are functional states characterizable by their place in a structured large causal network, it has a particular role or a job description which is its function, if it responds to causal inputs (stimuli and mental states like believes and desires and other functional states) with particular kinds of output (other mental states and other functional states and external behavior), like a finite state machine.

Pains, for instance, might be characterized by reference to typical causes (tissue damage, pressure, extremes of temperature), their relations to other states of mind (they give rise to the belief that you are in pain, and a desire to rid yourself of the source of pain), and behavioral outputs (you move your body in particular ways, groan, perspire). Consider your being in pain as a result of your grasping the handle of a cast iron skillet that has been left heating on the stove. Here, you being in pain is a matter of your being in a particular state, one that stands in appropriate causal relations to sensory inputs, to output behavior, and to other states of mind. These other states of mind are themselves characterizable by reference to their causal roles. Another example is, to say that Jones believes that it is raining is to say that he has a certain state, or process going on in him that is caused by certain sorts of inputs (external stimuli—for example, he perceives that it is raining); and this phenomenon, in conjunction with certain other factors, such as his desire to stay dry, will cause a certain sort of behavior on his part, the behavior of carrying an umbrella.

But how can we know the functions of the mind, if we will abstract from its hardware? Imagine you are a scientist confronted with a computing machine deposited on Earth by an alien starship. You might want to know how the device was programmed. Finding out would involve a measure of ‘reverse engineering’. You would ‘work backwards’ by observing inputs and outputs,hypothesizing computational operations linking inputs to outputs, testing these hypotheses against new inputs and outputs, and gradually refining your understanding of the alien device’s program. It seemed to solve all issues, for example, a computing machine can‘crash’ because of a software ‘bug’, or because of a hardware defect or failure. That's why people with mind defects are either due to brain problems or a mental dis-functions like going crazy.

Now the million dollar question everyone is avoiding until now is "How are those Mind functions are realized in the Brain and the nervous system?". How these functions are realized in the underlying software and hardware of a specific type, let's say for example, humans? A functionalist would answer that this is out of his scope of study, because the Black Box's inner workings are the responsibility of the neuroscience. Functionalism made philosophy of the Mind similar to Computer engineering.

The first version of functionalism, machine functionalism, presented by Hilary Putnam in the early 1960’s, machine functionalism argues that mental states, more specifically, are states of a hypothetical machine called a Turing Machine. Turing Machines are automatons which can, in principle, compute any problem and which do so in virtue of what are called ‘system states,’ which are tied to instructions for computational steps (e.g., “If in system state S, perform computation C and then transition into system state S2, and so on). In doing this it uses a computer model which describes the mind as a “multiply realisable”, it is like the calculations and rules that make up a software program that can be run on any machine, or in our case for example, animals and humans. Furthermore, we have a test that will enable us to tell when we have actually duplicated human cognition, the Turing test. The Turing test gives us a conclusive proof of the presence of cognitive capacities. To find out whether or not we have actually invented an intelligent machine we need only apply the Turing test.

To differentiate between this model and behaviourism, this model assumes that the functional states cause (and are therefore not identical with) behaviour while acknowledging the insight (often attributed to Ryle) that the mental is importantly related to behavioural output or response (as well as to stimulus or input). The differences is that functionalism also refers to other mental states; further, these other mental states are interlinked with each other, stimuli, and behavior in a web of causal relations. This allows both an appearance of choice (“Shall I respond in this way?”) and the presence of beliefs independent of any possible behaviour.

The model also differs from identity theory in that it does not matter what the physical cause of the mental state is because a causal role can be defined independently of its physical realization (that is, because functional states are multiply realizable). So, whether my brain state is always the same when I do a particular thing, or whether it is consistent with other people’s or animals when they do, is immaterial because there are any number of different ways in which such an experience might be “realised”. Rather than define pain in terms of C-fiber firing, functionalism defines pain in terms of the causal role it plays in our mental life: causing avoidance behavior, warning us of danger, etc., in response to certain environmental stimuli.

Problems

  1. Consciousness remains deeply mysterious on anyone’s view. We have no idea how to accommodate consciousness to the material world, no idea how to explain the phenomenon of consciousness. Chinese Mind Argument: The philosopher Ned Block has argued that a case could be made for creating a mind - according to the functional definition -  on a grand scale where the population of China was fitted with radios which were connected up in just the same way that the neurons in the brain are connected up, and messages passed between them in the same way as between neurons. According to functionalism, this should create a mind; Functionalism relies on the idea that Functional states are “multiply realisable” – an idea which means that, not only may aliens and animals experience pain, but robots and the whole Chinese nation as well. But it is very difficult to believe that there would be a ‘Chinese consciousness’. If the Chinese system replicated the state of my brain when I feel pain, would something be in pain?
  2. We said that you being in pain is a matter of your being in a particular state, one that stands in appropriate causal relations to sensory inputs, to output behavior, and to other states of mind. But if we keep analyzing states of Mind with other states of Mind we end with infinite circular accounts. Solution: The idea is that because the identity of every state depends on relations it bears to other states, we cannot characterize mental items piecemeal, butonly ‘holistically’ – all at once.
  3. Qualia Problem. Solution:You are able to describe your experience as of a spherical red object, but it is the tomato that is spherical and red, not your experience. So the first distinction is between:
    1. Qualities of experiences (seen from third person perspective, like a scientist looking at your brain while you are seeing a tomato) 
    2. Qualities of objects experienced. (Seen from a first person perspective like you seeing a red and round tomato)
    A functionalist might contend that an experience is a matter of your representing a throbbing occurrence in your big toe but nothing in fact throbs. In the state of a tomato, nothing is red or round, only we represent it like this. These are qualities we represent objects as having, but it does not follow that anything actually has the qualities – any more than from the fact that we can represent mermaids, it follows that mermaids exist. What opponents of functionalism describe as qualities of conscious experiences – qualia – are qualities of nothing at all! They are rather qualities we mistakenly represent objects and occurrences as having. Alternatively, to say that your experience possesses such qualities is just to say that you are representing something as having them. Problem: But why do we represent them like this? And why are different conscious experiences have different qualities? And why this representation can be sensed?
  4. Chinese Room Argument: Any theory of mind that includes multiple realizability allows for the existence of strong AI. The appropriately programmed computer with the right inputs and outputs would thereby have a mind in exactly the same sense human beings have minds. The question Searle wants to answer is this: does the machine literally "understand" Chinese? Or is it merely simulating the ability to understand Chinese? Searle calls the first position "strong AI" and the latter "weak AI". This is considered an argument for refutation of functionalism mainly. 

Chinese Room

Searle's Chinese room argument holds that a program cannot give a computer a "mind", "understanding" or "consciousness", regardless of how intelligently it may make it behave. The question Searle wants to answer is this: does the machine literally "understand" Chinese? Or is it merely simulating the ability to understand Chinese? Searle calls the first position "strong AI" and the latter "weak AI". This is considered an argument for refutation of functionalism mainly.
Suppose that I ’ m locked in a room and given a large batch of Chinese writing. I know no Chinese, either written or spoken. Now suppose further that after this fi rst batch of Chinese writing I am given a second batch of Chinese script together with a set of rules for correlating the second batch with the first batch. The rules are in English, and I understand these rules. They enable me to correlate one set of formal symbols with another set of formal symbols, and all that “ formal ” means here is that I can identify the symbols entirely by their shapes. Unknown to me, the people who are giving me all of these symbols call the call the [first] batch “ questions. ” Furthermore, they call the symbols I give them back in response to the [first] batch “ answers to the questions, ” and the set of rules in English that they gave me, they call “ the program. ” Suppose also that after a while I get so good at following the instructions for manipulating the Chinese symbols and the programmers get so good at writing the programs that from the external points of view – that is, from the point of view of somebody outside the room in which I am locked – my answers to the questions are absolutely indistinguishable from those of native Chinese speakers. As regards the [claims of strong AI], it seems to me quite obvious in the example that I do not understand a word of Chinese. I have inputs and outputs that are indistinguishable from those of the native Chinese speaker, and I can have any formal program you like, but I still understand nothing. (Searle, 417 – 18)
Any account of meaning has to recognize the distinction between the symbols, construed as purely abstract syntactical entities, and the semantics, the meanings attached to those symbols. The symbols have to be distinguished from their meanings.  For example, if I write down a sentence in German, “Es regnet,” you will see words on the page and thus see the syntactical objects, but if you do not know German, you will be aware only of the syntax, not of the semantics. A program uses syntax to manipulate symbols and pays no attention to the semantics of the symbols, unlike our thoughts have meaning: they represent things and we know what it is they represent.

If Searle doesn't understand Chinese solely on the basis of running the right rules, then neither does a computer solely on the basis of running the right program. All that is ever happening is rule-based activity (which is not how humans work), so manipulating symbols according to a program is not enough by itself to guarantee cognition, perception, understanding, thinking, and so forth; that is, the creation of minds. Searle's room can pass the Turing test, but still does not have a mind, then the Turing test is not sufficient to determine if the room has a "mind".

Replies on the Chinese Room Argument


The System Reply


The basic "system reply" argues that it is the "whole system" that understands Chinese. While the man understands only English, when he is combined with the program, scratch paper, pencils and file cabinets, they form a system that can understand Chinese.

Searle responds by simplifying this list of physical objects: he asks what happens if the man memorizes the rules and keeps track of everything in his head? Then the whole system consists of just one object: the man himself. But he still would have no way to attach “any meaning to the formal symbols”. The man would now be the entire system, yet he still would not understand Chinese. For example, he would not know the meaning of the Chinese word for hamburger. Searle argues that if the man doesn't understand Chinese then the system doesn't understand Chinese either because now "the system" and "the man" both describe exactly the same object.

But what do we mean by understanding the symbols of a language? is it the link between a word and idea from the memory? Can't a computer do that? We learn rules of manipulation and when to use them, a computer can also learn them. When we hear a word, we try to recall its meaning, a computer can also do that. So it all depends on what one means by “understand”.

The Robot Reply


Some critics concede Searle's claim that just running a natural language processing program as described in the CR scenario does not create any understanding, whether by a human or a computer system. But these critics hold that a variation on the computer system could understand. The variant might be a computer embedded in a robotic body, having interaction with the physical world via sensors and motors (“The Robot Reply”).

The Robot Reply concedes Searle is right about the Chinese Room scenario: it shows that a computer trapped in a computer room cannot understand language, or know what words mean. The Robot reply is responsive to the problem of knowing the meaning of the Chinese word for hamburger—Searle's example of something the room operator would not know. It seems reasonable to hold that we know what a hamburger is because we have seen one, and perhaps even made one, or tasted one, or at least heard people talk about hamburgers and understood what they are by relating them to things we do know by seeing, making, and tasting. Given this is how one might come to know what hamburgers are, the Robot Reply suggests that we put a digital computer in a robot body, with sensors, such as video cameras and microphones, and add effectors, such as wheels to move around with, and arms with which to manipulate things in the world. Such a robot—a computer with a body—could do what a child does, learn by seeing and doing. The Robot Reply holds that such a digital computer in a robot body, freed from the room, could attach meanings to symbols and actually understand natural language. 

Tim Crane discusses the Chinese Room argument in his 1991 book, The Mechanical Mind. Crane appears to end with a version of the Robot Reply: “Searle's argument itself begs the question by (in effect) just denying the central thesis of AI—that thinking is formal symbol manipulation. But Searle's assumption, none the less, seems to me correct … the proper response to Searle's argument is: sure, Searle-in-the-room, or the room alone, cannot understand Chinese. But if you let the outside world have some impact on the room, meaning or ‘semantics' might begin to get a foothold. But of course, this concedes that thinking cannot be simply symbol manipulation.”

Conclusion


The theory is obviously lacking, but In the absence of clear competitors, many theorists have opted to stick with functionalism despite what they admit are gaps and deficiencies, atleast until something better emerges. In this way, functionalism wins by default.

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