Minds, Brains, & Science - John Searle (1984 Reith Lectures)
In this series of lectures, John Searle, former Professor of Philosophy at Berkeley, examines the connections between minds, brains, and science. These lectures were given as part of the 1984 BBC Reith Lectures, but are still just as relevant today. Some of the topics discussed include free will, the mind-body problem, artificial intelligence, social reality, cognitive science, human action, consciousness, and the social sciences.
00:00 A Froth on Reality
In his first lecture, John Searle examines the so-called 'mind-body problem'. Searle uses this paradox of the conscious mind verses the scientific brain to explore our understanding of the world. He considers how humans think of themselves as cognisant, free, rational beings, but science tells us that we are a chance occurrence, created in a world that consists entirely of mindless physical particles. From this viewpoint Professor Searle explores the question: how can an essentially meaningless world contain meaning?
29:48 Beer Cans & Meat Machines
In his second lecture, John Searle considers artificial intelligence. He debates whether scientists could create a digital computer which has its own thoughts and presents his famous "Chinese Room" argument. He compares the relationship of the mind and the brain to that of computer programme software to computer hardware. But can a man-made machine ever think like a human?
59:21 Grandmother Knew Best
In his third lecture, John Searle explores the discipline of cognitive science. He investigates how and why scientists are developing this field. Exploring how the human brain processes information in order to do the action of thinking, Searle links back to his previous lectures to debate the differences between human thought and computerized artificial intelligence.
1:29:05 Walk to Patagonia
In his fourth lecture, John Searle analyses the structure of human actions. He draws together the mental and physical aspects to show how our mental activities can produce our behavior. Can our ability to choose our movements be what separates us from machines? Professor Searle seeks to show how the structure of an action relates to the explanation of it.
1:58:45 A Changing Reality
In his fifth lecture, John Searle considers the discipline of human behavioral science. He explores the limits to the insights that we can expect from a 'science' of human behavior. He questions the success of the natural sciences. Why have they not given us more information about human behavior? What makes the subject so different to sciences like physics and chemistry?
2:28:21 Freedom of the Will
In his sixth and final lecture, John Searle examines the evidence for and against the existence of free will. He attempts to explain why human beings stubbornly believe in their own freedom of action and debates the issue of free will. He concludes his Reith Lectures trying to characterize the relationship between the perceptions of self and the world around us.
#Philosophy #Searle #Consciousness
Пікірлер: 15
Genius! Lovely to have the entire series in one continuous record. Thanks!
Was just listening to these separeted, thanks for joining them!
Lecture 3: I have often pondered on why whenever there is a new technology academia immediately maps the human being onto it. That is mystifying. Thank you for all these lectures in one video, I recently watched the first two of these and it is convienent to have them all together with a description of each lecture's topic.
Listening to this lecture from the perspective of questions about what is happening with respect to delusional states of thinking that resist strongly against attempts to change the disorderly outcome of behaviour in that the mental pre-intention is mostly thwarted in reality. Principles 7 and 8 outlined by Searle around how intentionality and actions coincide is relevant to the questions re delusional states. I live with a family member who spends enormous efforts to pre-empt every outward daily activity in an effort to avoid undesirable consequences and such efforts or choices invariably result in the opposite direction and therefore strengthens the basis of the delusion. The issue at point is that everything he is doing is encompassed in the belief that the background he is intending to enter upon consists only of human capacities that are also intentional mental states. And, he is adamant that the whole of society is premised solely on mental constructs too. So, the delusional thing keeps repeating even though he thinks that he will overcome this by changing the pre-emptive part each time he is faced with entering into the general space shared with others who are themselves acting not necessarily from mental states or so-called spontaneously. Unfortunately, the repetition of the erroneous forms of intentional behaviour becomes embedded in the self-centred images that automatically drive his psychological life movement and ruin his conception of the social environment that surrounds him. It’s not simply only the notion of intentionality that is the basis of delusional thinking, there’s obviously other factors playing out as well. It seems like he is caught up in a form of self- hypnosis and can’t or won’t escape from its hold on himself. Another thing to note is that treatment with psychoactive medications have little or no effect on the delusions. I agree with Searle’s conclusions that in order to understand what is happening concerning the origin of behavioural disruption, looking from the common sense perspective reveals something significant.
Great. Listening now.❤️
Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, chapters 5-8 (short chapters) covers most of this. See it on Project Gutenburg.
Great, love this... Sounds so right and easy how he thinks and explain almost 40 years ago. Today we do thar with algorithm and wright's and parameters
1:46:00
the comparison of computers following rules and humans should be limited to neuo-networks such as in the hippocampus
19:10 - is water wet? philosophy edition
Froth on the waves has a major effect on the action of the waves. Little waves break preferentially at the peaks of longer waves (froth) and impart their momentum preferentially to long waves. This leads to a much faster production of long waves by wind than can be accounted for by linear instabilities. See M.S.Longuet-Higgins A Nonlinear Mechanism for the Generation of Sea Waves , 1969
@yclept9
Жыл бұрын
@@TheWorldTeacher Maybe the analogy goes through further.
🙀
I like Searle. He came up with a phrase "disciplinary matrix" BUT Academic philosophers need to get high on entheogenics. They are stuck in their left brain rut. Their left brain disciplinary matrix. How can squares understand the roundness of the world? Wittgenstein was alive and passionate within the facade of logicism. He was and still is unique. And the squares still do not get him.
I never bought Searle's gig.....