Minds, Consciousness, and Morality.

Following our previous article “AI and the Future of Humanity”, we received a few critical questions concerning my thoughts on the nature of humans in relation to AI.  The questions are relevant and important not only in terms of understanding AI, but also humanity.  There is value in raising questions, and I hope that my responses add some additional insight to the conversation.

The questions raised were specifically in response to the following:

Q: How might AI subvert our moral consciousness?

A: I don’t particularly believe in the notion of morality or consciousness, but I understand the point.  We’ve seen this before with religion, and more recently tribal politics, I don’t think this is something particularly unique to AI, and it’s impossible to predict whether the effects would be much better or worse than what has come before, and so perhaps we’ll have to let future human or future intelligentsia answer this one?

Q: Can a machine think? Can we explore the philosophy of mind here – and discuss whether or not it might be possible for AI to have a mind and think. 

A: I generally don’t entertain the existence of minds.  It doesn’t seem to me that minds add anything to the discussion about what it is to experience.  That being said, I don’t think humans have minds, and I don’t think that AI will have minds either.  In both cases there is a complex system of inputs and outputs, and while I feel okay calling that process ‘thinking’, I don’t see the need to introduce the concept of minds into the equation. In short however, I do believe that machines can and will possess the quality of thought.

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Following these two points, I was essentially asked “HOW”?  How can a philosopher not believe in morality, consciousness, or minds?

Western Philosophy spans thousands of years, and questioning things like morality, consciousness, and minds is nothing new.  There are hundreds of thousands of pages written about these topics in everything from academic journals to personal diaries.  Thus, I can’t expect to give a full and detailed depiction of my reasoning here, but I can at least attempt to give a succinct account of my rationale.

I won’t spend too much time on mind and consciousness since I have written about both in the articles “I climb and Other Problems With “Self”” Part I and II.

Historically the mind was used as a placeholder to account for the mysteries of subjective experience.  In the ancient world, even the greatest thinkers had no idea what the brain was or what it did.  From this complete lack of understanding we get terms like mind and soul which are used to account for all human experience.  From climbing the tallest mountains to falling in love, our experiences had to happen somewhere and to something, and so “mind” became this all-encompassing god of the gaps.  Whatever this mind thing is, it seems to offer life to us mere mortals.  There comes a point when us sapiens are unresponsive, we lack “mental” responsiveness, and are thus considered dead.  Well, the body is dead anyway, but what happens to the mind?  There are thousands of answers from Hades to Heaven which come with thousands of interpretations from reincarnation to eternal damnation.  All narratives based in total ignorance.

As we got more and more familiar with the brain and the functions of the brain and the power of the brain, the role of the mind began diminishing.  It continued to diminish until we arrive at where we are today.  Every experience, from climbing the tallest mountain to falling in love, can be accounted for by the workings of the human body which includes several systems working non-consciously in unison, especially, but not limited to the nervous system.  To speak of minds, beyond or in addition to the body, is not only non-parsimonious, but also generates a burden of proof so substantial that the fulfillment is incomprehensible.  Leaving superstition as the only remaining support for the mind.

If we eliminate the mind or reduce the traditional qualities of the mind to the body (primarily the brain), then what is conscious?  What is a self?  What am I?  These terms are mental residue, or residue of society that has been “mind” dependent for thousands of years.  If all we mean by consciousness is to be aware, then sure, consciousness exists at some level.  Most however, take consciousness to mean some type of driver who is operating this skin bag of bone and sinew to serve its desires as it traverses around the planet.  A homunculus which peers through the oculus windshield navigating passions and pitfalls. 

Admittedly, it does kind of seem like there is a Carrot directing these fingers toward keys with the intention of typing these words.  But falling into a trap of seeming is exactly why we talk of sunsets and solids.  You can’t believe in sunsets while maintaining that we live in a heliocentric system.  You can’t believe in solids while embracing quantum physics.  Similarly, you can’t embrace a seat in the cartesian theater while depending solely on the method of seeming.

“Consciousness” is embedded into the language we use to describe the most personal aspects of human experience.  It is a term so embedded that few actually question the reality of its existence, but just because we don’t question something doesn’t mean we can’t, and it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.  The same point can and should be raised for all concepts that we tend to take for granted, including morality.

I understand the urge to express that something is wrong.  Plainly wrong, factually wrong, OBJECTIVELY WRONG.  In climbing we eschew folks who manipulate natural rock to make a climb easier.  When tourists are caught defacing natural features, or worse yet, destroying prehistoric columns and mesas, we seek reprisal.  Climbers and ecologists demand punishment for vandals caught in the act.  We scrutinize and shun them with a perceived moral authority.  They have broken a code of ethics, they have done something immoral, they have committed a wrong.

The strength of our belief in morality increases in union with the intensity of the transgression.  It’s one thing to knock over a rock, but it’s a whole other thing to wantonly harm innocence. 

We talk this way, we act this way, we feel this way!  However, despite of how we talk, act, and feel, these things have little bearing on truth.

Like discussions of mind and consciousness, the topic of morality goes back at least as far as recorded history.  That is, we have been talking and thinking about morality for over 3,000 years.  In those 3,000 years you would expect that we humans would have discovered at least one objective universal moral norm.  But how many objective moral facts we have discovered?  How many moral rules have been shown to be universally true?

Zero, zilch, nada, none, nil, nothing, nix!

One would think that after 3,000 years of looking for just one objective moral fact that we would have turned up something, and yet here we are.  The problem is that people conflate their feelings for facts.  Don’t get me wrong, there are voluminous things that feel wrong, but feelings are personal, feelings are subjective, feelings apply to the feeler, not the state of affairs.

It is a fact that vandals knock over ancient monuments, it’s a fact that nay-do-wellers harm innocence.  It’s also a fact that these actions frustrate me and others like me, it’s a fact that these actions are illegal, it’s a fact that we demand restitution.  But to say an act is wrong adds nothing to these states of affairs rather than expressing our subjective response to these objective facts.

Just as demons, and upper ether, and Mount Olympus have been dispelled by rational deliberation, falsification, and objective testing, so too goes the residue of these ancient systems including the mind, consciousness, and morality.

I’ve been asked on several occasions why anyone would act morally if there is no morality. To which I generally respond, just because morality doesn’t exist, it doesn’t follow that empathy, compassion, thoughtfulness, reason, and long-term goals dimmish.  We can and do have all these things without morality.  When people are hurt, I too am in turn hurt, when nature gets harmed, I too am harmed.  Ridding ourselves of an objective morality has no bearing on the subjective experiences.  As the philosopher J.L. Mackie once said, “there is no objective value on food, but I still like it”. 

A world in which there is no morality would look exactly like the world we live in today, because in the end, we do live in a world in which there is no morality.  There are rules, codes, morays, laws, and judgments, all of which are purely conventional, i.e. created by and endorsed by humans.  The rules have been changing since day one, and they will continue to change until the very last day, and like Mackie said about food, there is no objective value on these rules, but we (humans) still like them.