Human intelligence throughout most written history has been considered a pinnacle product of evolutionary (or divine) design; repeatedly invoked as “something that separates us” from the rest of nature in a very “higher than thou” sense. In the past century the thought that maybe our mental abilities are not nearly as mystical as originally supposed has gained a foothold in modern science and psychology. Parallels drawn between computers and human minds have forced scientists and philosophers alike to ask “can a computer understand?” and in turn “what is human understanding?” John R. Searle argues that not only is human understanding impossible for a computer, but that a computer can have no form of understanding at all (Searle: reprint Cooney 249-252). While there is a multitude of arguments both defending and attacking this claim, most hinge on just what human understanding is. Given these conditions, I will attempt to formulate my own definition of human understanding, and then examine Searle’s statement.
I’ll borrow an example structure put forward by Searle to start off this line of thought; we will examine three cases, a person, a dog, and a lawn, each of which are said to be “thirsty” (Searle 78). Yet that we can have a conversation with the child at all reveals that it does have some understanding. Without debating metaphors, by “thirsty” I mean that all three are in need of water, and before we ask does each understand, can they express this thirst? For the person there is a resounding yes, for our furry friend, though it will require more indirect communication, the answer still is yes. But what about the grass? If the grass is in dire need of water, let us say very thirsty, it will turn brown and seem to be expressing thirst though it is not aware of its impending doom. The origin of thirst in the human and dog is very similar; cells in their respective bodies react like the grass cells to the diminishing water supply, nerves and senses react, and the person or dog become mentally aware of a need for water and experience being thirsty. In most cases a man or dog would not wait until their skin was peeling to realize they were thirsty. The dog we can safely say “knows” it is thirsty, and specifically goes about either finding water or getting some assistance locating water. The person knows and understands his or her thirst the same as the dog, but can also as an adult know and understand the aforementioned conditions that bring about thirst, and beyond that they can discuss their thirst comparatively with a companion.
So understanding in itself is a form of knowing, and human understanding seems to involve levels of understanding beyond simply being aware. Though I should specify that I am referring to adult understanding, since explaining to a child that vegetables are good for them beyond their immediate health is nearly impossible; we don’t expect to converse with a five year old on just how various vitamins and minerals chemically benefit our well being in the long run. Yet that we can have a conversation with the child at all reveals that it does have some understanding. This is especially apparent when most basic ideas of right and wrong are taught through “how would it make you feel?” methods. But what understanding can a computer have? My laptop has at least as much “understanding” as my lawn, and would seem to be as aware as the average house pet since when it’s battery is getting low it will inform me that I need to plug it in to continue using it, rather than shutdown without warning. However, neither my dog nor my laptop can discuss with me why they need their respective energy sources.
Hypothetically I could converse with an advanced computer about a dog’s need for food or my laptop’s need for power to a level as in depth as with my friend Joe. But does it have any understanding of what it is saying to me, or what I am saying to it? According to Searle’s Chinese Room scenario, no (Searle: reprint Cooney 249-252); it is merely providing correct outputs for given inputs, much the same as it handles mathematical problems with rules and preprogrammed functions. Yet is that not in a way exactly what humans do? Given whatever someone says, your reaction will be compiled from digging through your own past experiences and formulating what you should say or do. And beyond that we can go into further detail about our reaction; me and Joe could infinitely break down a sentence starting with a discussion about Florida, moving to the various local plant life, to orange groves, to oranges, to fruits, to a healthy diet, to chemistry, to physics, and so on through the layers of understanding and interconnected knowledge. A computer could do the same if programmed with linked arrays of information and sub-lists within each higher idea or phrase. I imagine Searle would stop us short, “bup-bup-bup” waggling his finger, “the computer is still weaving through rules and preprogrammed information.” But do I have a real understanding of what I myself speak about? My knowledge of Japan is a rather removed one; I can imagine walking down a street in Tokyo, yet do I truly understand it all? But there is something I understand, I understand walking down a city street, I know what Japanese characters and people look like, and in turn I can build a mental representation of a Tokyo street scene. To understand anything I have not directly experienced I am forced to take my own experiences and indirectly adapt it to whatever information I am given.
So it is not understanding that the computer lacks, but a direct experience with whatever it is discussing with me, and it also lacks any single experience with which to relate a subject. I concede that a computer may never be capable of human understanding, to say that it has absolutely no understanding is a much larger leap because it is similar to saying a dog does not understand that it is thirsty. While a calculator does not experience numbers anymore than the poor soul locked in Searle’s Chinese Room understands Chinese, I feel that if we specifically built a robot that would have senses and work on those rather than merely inputs from a user, it would begin to at least have a form of experience. There will always be a difference between a mechanical or digital system and a biological one, however what is experience itself? My senses are compiled through my nervous system, and then encoded in biochemical electricity in short term memory before being processed either for immediate use or stored in long term memory. Every PC already does the second half of this function; given certain user inputs it will either work something over in RAM or store information to a hard-drive. Now if to that personal computer we add an array of senses and have it deciding what needs to be stored and what operated upon, it is now having a computer experience. And here we have a computer that understands; a complex and intelligent system capable of having experiences that is also able to learn, and more specifically adapt old experiences to new ones.


CITATION
Searle as reprinted in:
Cooney, B. (2000). "The Place of Mind". Belmont, CA, Wadsworth.

Searle, John R. (1994). "The Rediscovery of the Mind.", Cambridge, MA., MIT Press.

“Human” Consciousness

Like most philosophy we must take old ideas of what makes a man “human,” that is having all the mental capabilities of the average human being, with a grain of salt. Their authors were bound in their time to the knowledge and language available to them; for instance, they did not have, as psychologists and philosophers do today, the benefits of computer science terminology and principles to explain what occurs in minds (or more specifically brains). Descartes noticed an intentionality in humans that animals and plants appeared to lack, and tried to explain it with a Cartesian mind as made most sense to him (Descartes Meditations I and II). Ryle, while agreeing that minds and their contents were not necessarily the same as bodies, disagreed that minds had to be contained in some dimension other than the body (Ryle: Cooney 39). Malcolm moves a step further in stating, “Things which do not have the human form, or anything like it, not merely do not but cannot satisfy the criteria for thinking.” (Malcolm: Cooney 46). This criterion sounds very strict for having a conscious mind, and could even be viewed as homocentric. But working up from the proposals of these three philosophers, using modern knowledge and philosophies, can something inhuman satisfy Malcolm’s statement?

The physiology of the human body is very distinct from others on Earth, and this may contribute to our mental “separation” from the rest of the animal kingdom. Our lack of acute individual senses, such as the nose of a dog or ears of a bat, is balanced with a stronger overall mix of ways to perceive and interact with our world. On top of our many senses we have one of the largest, by proportion to body mass, and most complex brains in nature. Perhaps this is what all three scholars were pointing us to; that it is this combination of an active mind with a body that can accurately and dynamically sense and interact with the outside world that makes mankind “human.” It isn’t unheard of to compare certain animals with young children when it comes to intelligence and problem solving; we do much the same with people who have mental deficiencies or diseases. The fact that something as subtle as a chemical imbalance in the human brain can make it almost impossible for someone to function “normally” seems to validate Malcolm’s statement.

However, Malcolm’s declaration could be taken as a hypothesis that there is some physiological formula for creating a “mind,” in the sense of normal human behavior. Let’s choose to “detect” human consciousness by looking for a specific range or set of behaviors such as Malcolm’s basic “looking, pointing, reaching for, and going to” specified objects (Cooney 45). Just as much as a computer will need specific hardware to run certain software or an entire operating system, so must there be something in the chemistry and physical construction of the human brain which allows consciousness to come into being. And why not? To say that all non-human living things lack a mind seems absurd after so much research has shown animals to have problem solving and communication capabilities beyond that of human infants. Dogs and robots can fetch things, communicate with us on simple subjects, and both are being used in groundbreaking ways of detecting cancer cells at early stages. But somewhere in their structure, either in the ways their body can sense and interact with the world, or in the make up of their brain, the hardware necessary for “human” consciousness is missing. We have all seen videos of parrots, dogs, and other pets mimicking human language, but to go so far as to claim they understand the sounds they are making is akin to claiming a computer built thirty years ago could run a contemporary operating system.

Science fiction has proposed countless forms of life that are capable of human-like, and even supposedly “higher,” consciousness. But a trend of modifications to the human form is seen in most “aliens” that are not animal like hunters, pets, etc. (Alien vs. Predator, 2004, Twentieth Century Fox). With this in mind, the entire Vulcan race (from the Star Trek series) could be taken as a population of humans with a mental state similar to autism. While someone suffering from autism often has trouble living and interacting in our society, if autism were the norm and not the minority it is possible a society could have developed to function around the conditions created.

But, what about the more fanciful aliens? The infamous bar scene in the film Star Wars IV: A New Hope presented audiences with more than a dozen otherworldly characters portrayed to be just as conscious and social as any human. Here is where we must consider another statement by Malcolm. “The human body is the best picture of the human soul” (Cooney 49). While accounts from two human witnesses of an event can differ widely, they can still relate to the event as a human because both have almost identical bodies and brains. If a dog or strange alien developed a conscious brain, it would be very hard for a human and that talking dog or alien to understand each other’s experiences, even of the same object or incident, beyond the very basic physics involved. Very simple things such as vision will be extremely varied between the two involved in the conversation. While the dog and physicists could spend all day discussing wavelengths of light and various other physical aspects of an apple, the human physicist can never explain to the dog what red appears to him because the dog cannot see colors. So while an evolved dog or visitor from space could be capable of thought, it hypothetically won’t be very “human” thought since their understanding of the world outside their minds will be very different from the average human. Going back to the example of the Vulcan race, who look just like humans except for their pointed ears, are perfectly able to communicate with humans, but the two races can never understand one another’s thoughts and choices.

In the end I feel satisfying Malcolm’s criteria of having the “human form, or anything like it” comes down to not so much a physical definition, but deciding what “human” thought is. A classification such as this usually comes down to “norms” or an average. And so while almost anything alive can have consciousness or a mind, attempting to claim that such a being has human consciousness would seem impossible. The simple concept of “why” could easily eliminate most if not all other species in nature. A lion does not understand why its prey runs from it anymore than it knows why it is hungry in the first place. This is not necessarily a claim that human thought is for certain the highest possible form of consciousness, but merely that it is its own distinct form, and creates a specific range of behaviors that makes humanity distinct. For even with the exact same mental environment (or exact body and different mind), that being’s understanding of the world, while infinitely similar, will be infinitely distinct from that of the average human being.

Welcome to the Suck

So I've been back at my university for almost two months now, and while I made a promise to try and make this a good semester for me, it's getting rough every way I turn.

The first week I received two tickets for parking in the Events garage (which was labeled student parking on the official campus map), and for not having a parking pass displayed (even though it was in fact hanging from my rearview mirror, but with the parking services meter maids being men over the age of 60 who can barely get in and out of their official looking Parking Services Dodge pickup I'm not surprised they can't see a bright green envelope sized piece of plastic hanging in a windshield. So the next week I get scheduled for an appeal of the ticket for the next Friday.

Ok move along, but slowly, because I've been hit with a flu shipped first class from Malaysia; I can't breath, I'm feverish, and my head feels like if you tapped it, you just might pop it. Then as the flu finally settles on congesting my chest and nothing more, I get rear ended on the way to school due to the average Orlando residents lacking the ability to properly make right turns. I make it on campus only to find they've closed down one of the main student parking garages "For Event." Oh cruel irony, and they've closed it all day for something happening at 8pm tonight? Shakespeare, you've met your match.

No matter, I'm cool, I'm hip, I deal, I study, I go to class, I'm fine. I enjoy my Chick-Fil-A sandwich and potato waffles like any other day and head to the library, parking my bike and secluding myself to a half lit desk to try and get caught up in reading for a few classes. Two hours later I step out back into the world, stopping short at the bottom of the library steps when I look where I had left my bike. Keyword "had." For now it is nowhere to be found, not even at any of the bike racks I had left it at before (I checked in case my memory had failed me and I had walked to the library, I know it's not healthy to doubt yourself that much, but I do it all the time, hence my standardized test scores are not phenomenal).

But I have two more classes, so I must bite my tongue and hurry off. Four hours later free from the droning of my professors I walk out to my car. Missing my bike all the more as the half-mile between the parking garages and my classes takes much longer than I'm used to. Arriving at my car I make my way to the UCF Police Dept. to fill out a theft report and go on with my day, returning home to tell my roommate Eric of my joyous adventures.

My grandma calls, checking in since it has been awhile since we spoke. She asks if I was trying to make it "Thursday the 13th" upon my recollection of the days events. But she reminds me that the lack of real damage to my rear bumper makes it all not that bad. And this is true, no need for insurance exchanges and the like since the impact hadn't really done much more than shake the car and send my mound of coins all over the car (even now I have yet to gather them up). I read, I eat dinner, I sleep.

In the morning I make my way to the Student Union for my appeal. Sitting in a chairless hallway for half an hour reading before I am called in.

My fate is to be decided by a student who obviously isn't a Physics major, and an old tanned man with three teeth. Now when I say three teeth a few people have said "in front?" to which I reply "no three teeth in the entirety of his mouth."

I tell my tale of the complete lack of parking on campus. How the first three days of classes I would leave an hour before class, and every floor of every parking garage would have five cars circling (this is not an exaggeration), every parking lot much the same, at least one car already hovering in every row. I had to park in what was not truly a parking space two out of those three days. And I was also fifteen minutes or more late. Tired of this (dare I say it?) madness, I pull up the campus map to plan out my morning route a bit better. I look and see that a new parking garage has been constructed beside our new stadium just on the edge of campus. Over 3000 feet from the center of campus (I've looked at a map with a legend, it is that far). It is labeled F Events Garage, but the campus map has it warmingly colored green for D pass student parking.

Upon arriving the next morning I find about ten other cars parked in the entirety of the garage, all having their own D passes like mine. I make my way on campus and go about my day.

The student member of my jury tries to argue with me that I shouldn't have parked there, I should have kept circling campus looking for a spot. I explain to him that I did that, and putting aside the wastefulness of the act (and on the parking website in bold type they even exclaim that everyone should do this, just keep driving around, burning gas, lovely) I looked for another place to park because of the fruitlessness of driving around.

The three-toothed old man proclaimed "that is not a parking map, you shouldn't have paid attention to it." I have been going to this school for two years and a semester now, it wasn't until now that I knew there was a separate parking map. And if there is, shouldn't we be handed one with our parking pass? I have had two and never received one. But beyond that, this is purely absurd. In essence he is telling me I should doubt an official document. And yet this seems perfectly logical to both members of my jury, so my ticket is not overturned.

However there is hope, I can make one more appeal through our wonderful Student Government Association. You know, those people who every September show up in strange shirts demanding we vote. We don't know who or what we vote for, perhaps a few debates are held between the two "parties" running, but I never hear about them aside from a short article in the school newspaper. But apparently their responsible for those free tickets to Universal we get whenever universal is short on cash and needs us to come in and buy stuff in their gift stores, or pay $8 for a defrosted chicken sandwich. Join me in a chorus like "Yum."

So I email them for a request for an appeal, and am scheduled for the next Friday. Hmmm, seems to be a pattern here.

Once again the weekly cycle begins. Monday head on campus to get some pre-lab and homework done, and hit up Chick-Fil-A for some lunch (I don't love it, but it's that or Burger King, or the expensive Wackadoos, though now and then I do go to the on campus Einstein Bagels, but I prefer to save that for if I need a snack in between my evening classes.) The week passes by and here comes Friday. My day, a day for justice to be served, my plea will be heard, the faceless Man will be put in his place, the system will work.

I arrive at the SGA office at the Student Union and wait to be called to the conference room. Instead of two people, this time an entire room (maybe more than a dozen people if not at least a dozen) of SGA members, students like me. Half male, half female, some in suits, some in casual clothes, one in a ROTC uniform. I joke with them how Parking Services only assigned me two people, the guy in the uniform jokes that they’re here to listen. Little did I know it really was a joke and nothing more.

I lay out the same story, I present the same print out of the official campus map showing the Events garage being labeled student parking. I state I'm not asking that I be allowed to continue parking there again, but just that this be a warning, I did not know I couldn't park there until I received the ticket. The room full of faces made it a bit hard to remember everything I wanted to say, to my downfall I forgot to make a larger point of the fact that the campus map showed it as student parking, and that was why I parked there.

I am asked to leave the room while they deliberate. While I wait outside I chuckle to myself that I'm no longer surprised that SGA gets nothing done. It doesn't require twelve people to deal with a parking ticket; if they are all in there, something isn't getting done. An odd number, three or more, is enough to handle any simple case. I am called back in, at which point the uniformed student informs me.

"Parking Services specifically says we can't overturn tickets when the main reason is lack of convenient parking, so we can't help you." I automatically thank them for their time, grab my backpack, and leave. Only seconds after stepping out realizing I should have replied.

"There is a difference between lack of convenient parking and lack of parking period. I did not park there because lack of 'convenient' parking, this garage is at the very edge of campus, far from anywhere I need to be. I parked there because the official campus map informed me I was allowed to."

But those who know me well know that I'm always thinking five steps ahead but in action I'm two steps behind. And once I stepped out that room it was over. $25 moves from me to the university and its Uncle Scrooge like money vault.

Like every semester, I once again get that feeling that I'm part of a minority of sane people on this campus. Of course thoughts like that are usually said to be signs of insanity. But just maybe the crazy ones like their majority and want to pretend their the level ones. But when it feels like arm wrestling would accomplish more in dealing with almost anything on this campus, am I the crazy one?

So that brings us halfway through September. Tune in next time for the following three weeks recap.

http://www.eaglevsshark.net/

Great movie, much better than Napoleon Dynamite, also check Flight of the Conchords on HBO online or on tv.

As the clock ticks off 10:10:10 am on a saturday morning, I have to stop and remember a lot of things from the past few years. Somehow among all that has happened in this country and others the world still moves on as if the Bush administration really is just a spec on a windshield, while I myself have to decide if I want to remain a spec or start being a slight nuisance.

Undone

Things yet to act on this summer,

Comedy routine
Film short script
Refresh C programming
Escape