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This is why Aristotle said that the intellect cannot be material. The human intellect is able to receive and understand abstractions. However, whenever you try
by cicero 8y ago
This is why Aristotle said that the intellect cannot be material. The human intellect is able to receive and understand abstractions. However, whenever you try to represent an abstraction as a physical object or in a physical medium, it is no longer abstract. It is true that you can write about abstractions using physical ink on physical paper, but those are just symbols; they are not the abstraction. It is only when a person reads the symbols, understands them, and forms the abstraction in his mind that the abstraction comes into existence.
So, we can create programs that appear to do intelligent things, but it is the human observer that brings meaning to what the program is doing. The program might output the letters "dog" when a dog pass in front of its camera, but its the human that sees the "dog" that knows what a dog actually is.
- hopler 8y agoThat sounds like the illusion of consciousness. Neural networks show that you don't need "dog" in order to do whatever you need to with the idea of a dog.