Page 92 - Artificial Intelligence in the Age of Neural Networks and Brain Computing

80 CHAPTER 4 The Brain-Mind-Computer Trichotomy: Hermeneutic Approach

The brain – mind problem
moisnm dualism
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brain
mind

Hermeneutic circle

Computational theory of mind
brain-computer
analogy/disanalogy Classical cogntive science

computer
FIGURE 4.1
The brain-mind-computer trichotomy.

1.1 THE BRAIN-MIND PROBLEM
First, the brain-mind problem is related to the age-old philosophical debate among
monists and dualists. Attempts to “solve” the brain-mind problem can be classified
into two basic categories:

1. materialistic monism, leading in its ultimate consequences to some kind of
reductionism; and
2. interactionist dualism, which is more or less some type of Neo-Cartesian
philosophy.
The classification is, obviously, a crude oversimplification: a wide spectrum of
monistic theories exist from Skinner’ radical behaviorism [1] and Patricia.
Churchland’s eliminative materialism [2] through Smart’s physicalism [3] to
Bunge’s emergent materialism [4] (see also the controversial book of Deacon [5]):
• monism versus dualism
• reductionism
• emergentism
• functionalism
• downward causation
Interactionist dualism has always been an influential viewpoint since Descartes
defined the interaction between the spatially extended body and a noncorporeal
mind. Though its modern version was elaborated by two intellectual heroes of the
twentieth century (Sir Karl Popper and Sir John Eccles [6]), it has been criticized
or even ignored by the representatives of the “main stream” of the philosophy of