Introduction
(Slide) "The Postdigital
Membrane"
Introduce book. Klée
("Taking an line for a walk"). Taking an idea for a walk, namely:
There are no separations in the world. There is only the appearance of separation.
(Slide) "There are
no intrinsic separations in the world"
Whilst this may be true
as an abstract concept it seems to contradict our common experience of reality.
We offer the idea of a membrane (literal and metaphorical) that shows how
things can be both separate and connected. Membranes separate the things they
connect.
(Slide) "Permeable
membrane"
For example, in philosophical
discourse the human being is separated from its environment by having an apparent
inside and outside. The skin (Cutaneous Membrane) acts as a barrier but also
transmitter and regulator. So the inside and outside are continuous, which
has philosophical implications.
(Slide) "Continuous
human"
This is one sense, also,
in which the term postdigital is useful in that the membrane transcends the
"1" or "0", "all or nothing" logic to which
systems tend to be reduced in binary modelling without erasing the distinctions.
(Slide) "Postdigital"
One of the problems
we apply this approach to is that of consciousness. Perhaps the most important
ideas is that, for the purposes of studying consciousness, one cannot isolation
the brain from the body, or for that matter, the environment.
(Slide) " Consciousness
is not confined to the brain"
Rather than seeking
a cause for consciousness in the brain, it would be more accurate to say that
consciousness is a property that emerges from a given set of conditions, which
include the brain but many others as well. There are well-known phenomena
that can’t be reduced to a single cause or location: The Kettle example.
(Slide) Kettle image
We make a hard problem
even harder if we look in the wrong place for the explanation. To deal with
the specific theme of this series of talks: Neither Dualism (Idealism) nor
Materialism is any longer useful ways to think about the problem. Dualism
because it imposes an inherent distinction between mind and brain, and Materialism
because it imposes an inherent distinction between brain, body and environment.
(Slide) Dualism and Materialism
If we cannot separate
the brain and the body for the purposes of studying consciousness it is equally
true that we cannot separate the body from its environment. Just as many of
our states of feeling arise in conjunction with the body (hunger, alarm, desire,
etc.) so many of our conscious thoughts are responses to the stimuli of the
world (lights, smells, noises, etc.). We have to acknowledge the continuity
between brain, body and environment in the production of consciousness.
(Slide) "Consciousness
cannot be confined to the brain or the body"
It is in this sense
that consciousness or mind can be seen as pervading the world we are conscious
in. Much the same can be said of intelligence, imagination and other complex
aspects of human existence normally confined to the brain. For example, we
encode or embody our intelligence in other matter such that it can later be
retrieved by negotiation with other intelligent beings.
(Slide) Rembrandt self-portrait.
This is equally true
of machines that embody our intelligence such as those specifically designed
to mimic mental behaviour. They are already intelligent, or conscious, to
the extent that they embody those qualities that we endow them with. They
are part of our extended mind. Indeed, it was the possibility of conscious
machines that suggested the mind might exist beyond the brain in the first
place.
(Slide) "Intelligence
consists as much in its expression as in its conception"
Postdigital website