Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is an approach to psychotherapy that uses cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) methods in collaboration with mindfulness meditative practices and similar psychological strategies. It was originally created to be a relapse-prevention treatment for individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD). A focus on MDD and cognitive processes distinguishes MBCT from other mindfulness-based therapies. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), for example, is a more generalized program that also utilizes the practice of mindfulness.
MBSR is a group-intervention program, like MBCT, that uses mindfulness
to help improve the life of individuals with chronic clinical ailments
and high-stress lives.
CBT-inspired methods are used in MBCT, such as educating the
participant about depression and the role that cognition plays within
it.
MBCT takes practices from CBT and applies aspects of mindfulness to the
approach. One example would be "decentering", a focus on becoming aware
of all incoming thoughts and feelings and accepting them, but not
attaching or reacting to them.
This process aims to aid an individual in disengaging from
self-criticism, rumination, and dysphoric moods that can arise when
reacting to negative thinking patterns.
Like CBT, MBCT functions on the etiological
theory that when individuals who have historically had depression
become distressed, they return to automatic cognitive processes that can
trigger a depressive episode.
The goal of MBCT is to interrupt these automatic processes and teach
the participants to focus less on reacting to incoming stimuli, and
instead accepting and observing them without judgment.
Like MBSR, this mindfulness practice encourages the participant to
notice when automatic processes are occurring and to alter their
reaction to be more of a reflection. With regard to development, MBCT
emphasizes awareness of thoughts, which helps individuals recognize
negative thoughts that lead to rumination. It is theorized that this aspect of MBCT is responsible for the observed clinical outcomes.
Beyond the use of MBCT to reduce depressive symptoms, research
supports the effectiveness of mindfulness meditation in reducing
cravings for individuals with substance abuse issues. Addiction is known
to involve interference with the prefrontal cortex,
which ordinarily allows for delaying of immediate gratification for
longer-term benefits by the limbic and paralimbic brain regions. The
nucleus accumbens, together with the ventral tegmental area, constitutes
the central link in the reward circuit. The nucleus accumbens is also
one of the brain structures that is most closely involved in drug
dependency. In an experiment with smokers, mindfulness meditation
practiced over a two-week period totaling five hours of meditation
decreased smoking by about 60% and reduced their cravings, even for
those smokers who had no prior intentions to quit. Neuroimaging among those who practice mindfulness meditation reveals increased activity in the prefrontal cortex.
Background
In 1991, Philip Barnard and John Teasdale created a multilevel concept
of the mind called "Interacting Cognitive Subsystems" (ICS). The ICS
model is based on Barnard and Teasdale's concept that the mind has
multiple modes that are responsible for receiving and processing new
information cognitively and emotionally. This concept associates an
individual's vulnerability to depression with the degree to which he/she
relies on only one of the modes of mind, inadvertently blocking the
other modes.
The two main modes of mind are the "doing" mode and the "being" mode.
The "doing" mode is also known as the "driven" mode. This mode is very
goal oriented and is triggered when the mind develops a discrepancy
between how things are and how the mind wishes things to be.
The second main mode of mind is the "being" mode. This mode is not
focused on achieving specific goals; instead the emphasis is on
"accepting and allowing what is," without any immediate pressure to
change it. The central component of ICS is metacognitive awareness: the ability to experience negative thoughts and feelings as mental events that pass through the mind, rather than as a part of the self.
Individuals with high metacognitive awareness are able to avoid
depression and negative thought patterns more easily during stressful
life situations, in comparison with individuals with low metacognitive
awareness.
Metacognitive awareness is regularly reflected through an individual's
ability to decenter. Decentering is the ability to perceive thoughts and
feelings as both impermanent and objective occurrences in the mind.
In Barnard and Teasdale's (1991) model, mental health is related
to an individual's ability to disengage from one mode or to easily move
among the modes of mind. Individuals who are able to flexibly move
between the modes of mind based on conditions in the environment are in
the most favorable state. The ICS model theorizes that the "being" mode
is the most likely mode of mind that will lead to lasting emotional
changes. Therefore, to prevent relapse in depression, cognitive therapy
must promote this mode. This led Teasdale to the creation of MBCT, which
promotes the "being" mode.
This therapy was also created by Zindel Segal and Mark Williams and was partially based on the mindfulness-based stress reduction program, developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn.
The theories behind mindfulness-based approaches to psychological
issues function on the idea that being aware of things in the present,
and not focusing on the past or the future, will allow the individual to
be more apt to deal with current stressors and distressing feelings
with a flexible and accepting mindset, rather than avoiding and,
therefore, prolonging them.
Applications
The
MBCT program is a group intervention that lasts eight weeks. During
these eight weeks, there is a weekly course, which lasts two hours, and
one day-long class after the fifth week. However, much of the practice
is done outside class, with the participant using guided meditations and attempts to cultivate mindfulness in their daily lives.
MBCT prioritizes learning how to pay attention or concentrate
with purpose, in each moment and, most importantly, without judgment.
Through mindfulness, clients can recognize that holding onto some of
these feelings is ineffective and mentally destructive. MBCT focuses on
having individuals recognize and be aware of their feelings instead of
focusing on changing feelings. Mindfulness is also thought by Fulton et al. to be useful for the therapists during therapy sessions.
MBCT is an intervention program developed to specifically target
vulnerability to depressive relapse. Throughout the program, patients
learn mind management skills leading to heightened metacognitive
awareness, acceptance of negative thought patterns, and an ability to
respond in skillful ways. During MBCT patients learn to decenter their
negative thoughts and feelings, allowing the mind to move from an
automatic thought pattern to conscious emotional processing. MBCT can be used as an alternative to maintenance antidepressant treatment, though it may be no more effective.
Although the primary purpose of MBCT is to prevent relapse in
depressive symptomology, clinicians have been formulating ways in which
MBCT can be used to treat physical symptoms of other diseases, such as
diabetes and cancer. Clinicians are also discovering ways to use MBCT to treat the anxiety and weariness associated with these diseases.
Evaluation of effectiveness
A
meta-analysis by Jacob Piet and Esben Hougaard of the University of
Aarhus, Denmark Research found that MBCT could be a viable option for
individuals with MDD in preventing a relapse.
Various studies have shown that it is most effective with individuals
who have a history of at least three or more past episodes of MDD. Within that population, participants with life-event-triggered depressive episodes were least receptive to MBCT.
According to a 2017 meta-analysis of 547 patients, mindfulness-based
interventions support a 30-60% decrease in depressive and anxious
symptoms, in addition to overall level of patient stress.
An MBCT-based program offered by the Tees, Esk, and Wear Valleys
NHS Foundation Trust showed that measures of psychological distress,
risk of burnout, self-compassion, anxiety, worry, mental well-being, and
compassion for others all showed significant improvements after
completing the program.
Research supports that MBCT results in increased self-reported
mindfulness, which suggests increased present-moment awareness,
decentering, and acceptance, in addition to decreased maladaptive
cognitive processes such as judgment, reactivity, rumination, and
thought suppression.
Results of a 2017 meta-analysis highlight the importance of home
practice and its relation to conducive outcomes for mindfulness-based
interventions.
The English term enlightenment is the western translation of various Buddhist terms, most notably bodhi and vimutti. The abstract noun bodhi, (/ˈboʊdi/; Sanskrit: बोधि; Pali: bodhi), the knowledge or wisdom, or awakened intellect, of a Buddha. The verbal root budh- means "to awaken," and its literal meaning is closer to awakening. Although the term buddhi is also used in other Indian philosophies and traditions, its most common usage is in the context of Buddhism. vimukti is the freedom from or release of the fetters and hindrances.
The term "enlightenment" was popularised in the Western world through the 19th century translations of Max Müller.
It has the western connotation of general insight into transcendental
truth or reality. The term is also being used to translate several other
Buddhist terms and concepts, which are used to denote (initial) insight
(prajna (Sanskrit), wu (Chinese), kensho and satori (Japanese)); knowledge (vidya); the "blowing out" (Nirvana) of disturbing emotions and desires; and the attainment of supreme Buddhahood (samyak sam bodhi), as exemplified by Gautama Buddha.
What exactly constituted the Buddha's awakening is unknown. It
may probably have involved the knowledge that liberation was attained by
the combination of mindfulness and dhyāna, applied to the understanding of the arising and ceasing of craving. The relation between dhyana and insight is a core problem in the study of Buddhism, and is one of the fundamentals of Buddhist practice.
Bodhi, Sanskrit बोधि, "awakening," "perfect knowledge," "perfect knowledge or wisdom (by which a man becomes a बुद्ध [Buddha] or जिन [jina, arahant; "victorious," "victor"], the illuminated or enlightened intellect (of a Buddha or जिन)."
It is an abstract noun, formed from the verbal root *budh-, Sanskrit बुध, "to awaken, to know," "to wake, wake up, be awake," "to recover consciousness (after a swoon)," "to observe, heed, attend to."
It corresponds to the verbs bujjhati (Pāli) and bodhati, बोदति, "become or be aware of, perceive, learn, know, understand, awake" or budhyate (Sanskrit).
The feminine Sanskrit noun of *budh- is बुद्धि, buddhi, "prescience, intuition, perception, point of view."
Translation
Robert S. Cohen notes that the majority of English books on Buddhism use the term "enlightenment" to translate the term bodhi. The root budh, from which both bodhi and Buddha are derived, means "to wake up" or "to recover consciousness". Cohen notes that bodhi is not the result of an illumination, but of a path of realization, or coming to understanding. The term "enlightenment" is event-oriented, whereas the term "awakening" is process-oriented.
The western use of the term "enlighten" has Christian roots, as in
Calvin's "It is God alone who enlightens our minds to perceive his
truths".
Early 19th century bodhi was translated as "intelligence". The term "enlighten" was first being used in 1835, in an English translation of a French article, while the first recorded use of the term 'enlightenment' is credited (by the Oxford English Dictionary) to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (February, 1836). In 1857 The Times used the term "the Enlightened" for the Buddha in a short article, which was reprinted the following year by Max Müller. Thereafter, the use of the term subsided, but reappeared with the publication of Max Müller's Chips from a german Workshop, which included a reprint from the Times-article. The book was translated in 1969 into German, using the term "der Erleuchtete". Max Müller was an essentialist, who believed in a natural religion, and saw religion as an inherent capacity of human beings. "Enlightenment" was a means to capture natural religious truths, as distinguished from mere mythology.
By the mid-1870s it had become commonplace to call the Buddha
"enlightened", and by the end of the 1880s the terms "enlightened" and
"enlightenment" dominated the English literature.
Related terms
Insight
Bodhi
Bodhi (Sanskrit, Pāli), from the verbal root budd, "to awaken", "to understand", means literally "to have woken up and understood". According to Johannes Bronkhorst, Tillman Vetter, and K.R. Norman, bodhi was at first not specified. K.R. Norman:
It is not at all clear what gaining bodhi means. We are accustomed to the translation "enlightenment" for bodhi, but this is misleading ... It is not clear what the buddha was awakened to, or at what particular point the awakening came.
According to Norman, bodhi may basically have meant the knowledge that nibbana was attained, due to the practice of dhyana. Originally only "prajna" may have been mentioned,
and Tillman Vetter even concludes that originally dhyana itself was
deemed liberating, with the stilling of pleasure or pain in the fourth
jhana, not the gaining of some perfect wisdom or insight. Gombrich also argues that the emphasis on insight is a later development.
In Theravada Buddhism, bodhi refers to the realisation of the four stages of enlightenment and becoming an Arahant. In Theravada Buddhism, bodhi is equal to supreme insight, and the realisation of the four noble truths, which leads to deliverance. According to Nyanatiloka,
(Through Bodhi) one awakens from the slumber or stupor (inflicted upon the mind) by the defilements (kilesa, q.v.) and comprehends the Four Noble Truths (sacca, q.v.).
This equation of bodhi with the four noble truths is a later
development, in response to developments within Indian religious
thought, where "liberating insight" was deemed essential for liberation. The four noble truths as the liberating insight of the Buddha eventually were superseded by Pratītyasamutpāda, the twelvefold chain of causation, and still later by anatta, the emptiness of the self.
In Theravada Buddhism pannā (Pali) means "understanding", "wisdom", "insight". "Insight" is equivalent to vipassana', insight into the three marks of existence, namely anicca, dukkha and anatta. Insight leads to the four stages of enlightenment and Nirvana.
In Mahayana Buddhism Prajna (Sanskrit) means "insight" or "wisdom", and entails insight into sunyata. The attainment of this insight is often seen as the attainment of "enlightenment".
Kensho and satori
Kensho and Satori are Japanese terms used in Zen traditions. Kensho means "seeing into one's true nature." Ken means "seeing", sho means "nature", "essence", c.q Buddha-nature. Satori (Japanese) is often used interchangeably with kensho, but refers to the experience of kensho. The Rinzai tradition sees kensho as essential to the attainment of Buddhahood, but considers further practice essential to attain Buddhahood.
East-Asian (Chinese) Buddhism emphasizes insight into
Buddha-nature. This term is derived from Indian tathagata-garbha
thought, "the womb of the thus-gone" (the Buddha), the inherent
potential of every sentient being to become a Buddha. This idea was integrated with the Yogacara-idea of the ālaya vijñāna, and further developed in Chinese Buddhism, which integrated Indian Buddhism with native Chinese thought. Buddha-nature came to mean both the potential of awakening and
the whole of reality, a dynamic interpenetration of absolute and
relative. In this awakening it is realized that observer and observed
are not distinct entities, but mutually co-dependent.
Knowledge
The term vidhya is being used in contrast to avidhya, ignorance or the lack of knowledge, which binds us to samsara. The Mahasaccaka Sutta describes the three knowledges which the Buddha attained:
According to Bronkhorst, the first two knowledges are later
additions, while insight into the four truths represents a later
development, in response to concurring religious traditions, in which
"liberating insight" came to be stressed over the practice of dhyana.
Freedom
Vimukthi, also called moksha, means "freedom", "release", "deliverance". Sometimes a distinction is being made between ceto-vimukthi, "liberation of the mind", and panna-vimukthi, "liberation by understanding". The Buddhist tradition recognises two kinds of ceto-vimukthi, one temporarily and one permanent, the last being equivalent to panna-vimukthi.
Yogacara uses the term āśraya parāvŗtti, "revolution of the basis",
... a sudden revulsion, turning, or re-turning of the ālaya vijñāna
back into its original state of purity [...] the Mind returns to its
original condition of non-attachment, non-discrimination and
non-duality".
Nirvana
Nirvana is the "blowing out" of disturbing emotions, which is the same as liberation.
The usage of the term "enlightenment" to translate "nirvana" was
popularized in the 19th century, in part, due to the efforts of Max
Muller, who used the term consistently in his translations.
Arhat (Pali: arahant), those who reach Nirvana by following the teachings of the Buddha. Sometimes the term Śrāvakabuddha (Pali: sāvakabuddha) is used to designate this kind of awakened person;
Pratyekabuddhas (Pali: paccekabuddha), those who reach Nirvana through self-realisation, without the aid of spiritual guides and teachers, but don't teach the Dharma;
Samyaksambuddha (Pali: samma sambuddha), often simply referred to as Buddha, one who has reached Nirvana by his own efforts and wisdom and teaches it skillfully to others.
Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, is said to have achieved full awakening, known as samyaksaṃbodhi (Sanskrit; Pāli: sammāsaṃbodhi), "perfect Buddhahood", or anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, "highest perfect awakening". Specifically, anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi,
literally meaning unsurpassed, complete and perfect enlightenment, is
often used to distinguish the enlightenment of a Buddha from that of an
Arhat.
The term Buddha has acquired somewhat different meanings in the various Buddhist traditions. An equivalent term for Buddha is Tathāgata, "the thus-gone". The way to Buddhahood is somewhat differently understood in the various Buddhist traditions.
The awakening of the Buddha
Canonical accounts
In the suttapitaka, the Buddhist canon as preserved in the Theravada tradition, a couple of texts can be found in which the Buddha's attainment of liberation forms part of the narrative.
The Ariyapariyesana Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 26) describes how the Buddha was dissatisfied with the teachings of Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta,
wandered further through Magadhan country, and then found "an agreeable
piece of ground" which served for striving. The sutta then only says
that he attained Nibbana.
In the Vanapattha Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 17) the Buddha describes life in the jungle, and the attainment of awakening. The Mahasaccaka Sutta
(Majjhima Nikaya 36) describes his ascetic practices, which he
abandoned. Thereafter he remembered a spontaneous state of jhana, and
set out for jhana-practice. Both suttas narrate how, after destroying
the disturbances of the mind, and attaining concentration of the mind, he attained three knowledges (vidhya):
Insight into the Four Noble Truths is here called awakening. The monk (bhikkhu) has "...attained the unattained supreme security from bondage." Awakening is also described as synonymous with Nirvana, the extinction of the passions whereby suffering is ended and no more rebirths take place.
The insight arises that this liberation is certain: "Knowledge arose in
me, and insight: my freedom is certain, this is my last birth, now
there is no rebirth."
Critical assessment
Schmithausen
notes that the mention of the four noble truths as constituting
"liberating insight", which is attained after mastering the Rupa Jhanas,
is a later addition to texts such as Majjhima Nikaya 36. Bronkhorst notices that
...the accounts which include the
Four Noble Truths had a completely different conception of the process
of liberation than the one which includes the Four Dhyanas and the
destruction of the intoxicants.
It calls in question the reliability of these accounts, and the relation between dhyana and insight, which is a core problem in the study of early Buddhism. Originally the term prajna
may have been used, which came to be replaced by the four truths in
those texts where "liberating insight" was preceded by the four jhanas.
Bronkhorst also notices that the conception of what exactly this
"liberating insight" was developed throughout time. Whereas originally
it may not have been specified, later on the four truths served as such,
to be superseded by pratityasamutpada, and still later, in the Hinayana schools, by the doctrine of the non-existence of a substantial self or person. And Schmithausen notices that still other descriptions of this "liberating insight" exist in the Buddhist canon:
"that the five Skandhas are impermanent, disagreeable, and neither the Self nor belonging to oneself"; "the contemplation of the arising and disappearance (udayabbaya) of the five Skandhas"; "the realisation of the Skandhas as empty (rittaka), vain (tucchaka) and without any pith or substance (asaraka).
An example of this substitution, and its consequences, is Majjhima
Nikaya 36:42–43, which gives an account of the awakening of the Buddha.
Understanding of bodhi and Buddhahood
The
term bodhi acquired a variety of meanings and connotations during the
development of Buddhist thoughts in the various schools.
Early Buddhism
In early Buddhism, bodhi carried a meaning synonymous to nirvana, using only some different metaphors to describe the insight, which implied the extinction of lobha (greed), dosa (hate) and moha (delusion).
Theravada
In Theravada Buddhism, bodhi and nirvana carry the same meaning, that of being freed from greed, hate and delusion. In Theravada Buddhism, bodhi refers to the realisation of the four stages of enlightenment and becoming an Arahant. In Theravada Buddhism, bodhi is equal to supreme insight, the realisation of the four noble truths, which leads to deliverance. Reaching full awakening is equivalent in meaning to reaching Nirvāṇa. Attaining Nirvāṇa is the ultimate goal of Theravada and other śrāvaka traditions. It involves the abandonment of the ten fetters and the cessation of dukkha or suffering. Full awakening is reached in four stages. According to Nyanatiloka,
(Through Bodhi) one awakens from the slumber or stupor (inflicted upon the mind) by the defilements (kilesa, q.v.) and comprehends the Four Noble Truths (sacca, q.v.).
Since the 1980s, western Theravada-oriented teachers have started to question the primacy of insight. According to Thanissaro Bhikkhu, jhana and vipassana (insight) form an integrated practice. Polak and Arbel, following scholars like Vetter and Bronkhorst, argue that right effort, c.q. the four right efforts (sense restraint, preventing the arising of unwholesome states, and the generation of wholesome states), mindfulness, and dhyana form an integrated practice, in which dhyana is the actualisation of insight, leading to an awakened awareness which is "non-reactive and lucid."
Mahayana
In Mahayana-thought, bodhi is the realisation of the inseparability of samsara and nirvana, and the unity of subject and object. It is similar to prajna, to realizing the Buddha-nature, realizing sunyata and realizing suchness.
In time, the Buddha's awakening came to be understood as an immediate
full awakening and liberation, instead of the insight into and certainty
about the way to follow to reach enlightenment. However, in some Zen
traditions this perfection came to be relativized again; according to
one contemporary Zen master, "Shakyamuni buddha and Bodhidharma are
still practicing."
Within the various Mahayana-schools exist various further explanations and interpretations. In Mahāyāna Buddhism the Bodhisattva
is the ideal. The ultimate goal is not only of one's own liberation in
Buddhahood, but the liberation of all living beings. But Mahayana
Buddhism also developed a cosmology with a wide range of buddhas and
bodhisattvas, who assist humans on their way to liberation.
Nichiren Buddhism
regards Buddhahood as a state of perfect freedom, in which one is
awakened to the eternal and ultimate truth that is the reality of all
things. This supreme state of life is characterized by boundless wisdom
and infinite compassion. The Lotus Sutra reveals that Buddhahood is a
potential in the lives of all beings.
Buddha-nature
In the Tathagatagarbha and Buddha-nature doctrines bodhi becomes equivalent to the universal, natural and pure state of the mind:
Bodhi is the final goal of a Bodhisattva's career [...] Bodhi
is pure universal and immediate knowledge, which extends over all time,
all universes, all beings and elements, conditioned and unconditioned.
It is absolute and identical with Reality and thus it is Tathata. Bodhi
is immaculate and non-conceptual, and it, being not an outer object,
cannot be understood by discursive thought. It has neither beginning,
nor middle nor end and it is indivisible. It is non-dual (advayam) [...] The only possible way to comprehend it is through samadhi by the yogin.
According to these doctrines bodhi is always there within one's mind,
but requires the defilements to be removed. This vision is expounded in
texts such as the Shurangama Sutra and the Uttaratantra.
In Shingon
Buddhism, the state of Bodhi is also seen as naturally inherent in the
mind. It is the mind's natural and pure state, where no distinction is
being made between a perceiving subject and perceived objects. This is
also the understanding of Bodhi found in Yogacara Buddhism.
To achieve this vision of non-duality, it is necessary to recognise one's own mind:
... it means that you are to know
the inherent natural state of the mind by eliminating the split into a
perceiving subject and perceived objects which normally occurs in the
world and is wrongly thought to be real. This also corresponds to the
Yogacara definition ... that emptiness (sunyata) is the absence of this imaginary split ...
Harmonisation of the various terms and meanings in Vajrayana Buddhism
During
the development of Mahayana Buddhism the various strands of thought on
Bodhi were continuously being elaborated. Attempts were made to
harmonize the various terms. The Vajrayana Buddhist commentator Buddhaguhya treats various terms as synonyms:
For example, he defines emptiness (sunyata) as suchness (tathata) and says that suchness is the intrinsic nature (svabhava) of the mind which is Enlightenment (bodhi-citta). Moreover, he frequently uses the terms suchness (tathata) and Suchness-Awareness (tathata-jnana) interchangeably. But since Awareness (jnana) is non-dual, Suchness-Awareness is not so much the Awareness of Suchness, but the Awareness which is
Suchness. In other words, the term Suchness-Awareness is functionally
equivalent to Enlightenment. Finally, it must not be forgotten that this
Suchness-Awareness or Perfect Enlightenment is Mahavairocana
[the Primal Buddha, uncreated and forever existent]. In other words, the
mind in its intrinsic nature is Mahavairocana, whom one "becomes" (or
vice versa) when one is perfectly enlightened.
Western understanding of enlightenment
In the western world the concept of enlightenment has taken on a romantic meaning. It has become synonymous with self-realization and the true self, being regarded as a substantial essence being covered over by social conditioning.
Enlightenment as "Aufklärung"
The use of the western word enlightenment is based on the supposed resemblance of bodhi with Aufklärung, the independent use of reason to gain insight into the true nature of our world. In fact there are more resemblances with Romanticism than with the Enlightenment: the emphasis on feeling, on intuitive insight, on a true essence beyond the world of appearances.
Awakening
The equivalent term "awakening" has also been used in a Christian context, namely the Great Awakenings, several periods of religious revival in American religious history.
Historians and theologians identify three or four waves of increased
religious enthusiasm occurring between the early 18th century and the
late 19th century. Each of these "Great Awakenings" was characterized by
widespread revivals led by evangelical Protestant ministers, a sharp
increase of interest in religion, a profound sense of conviction and
redemption on the part of those affected, an increase in evangelical
church membership, and the formation of new religious movements and
denominations.
Romanticism and transcendentalism
The romantic idea of enlightenment as insight into a timeless, transcendent reality has been popularized especially by D.T. Suzuki. Further popularization was due to the writings of Heinrich Dumoulin.
Dumoulin viewed metaphysics as the expression of a transcendent truth,
which according to him was expressed by Mahayana Buddhism, but not by
the pragmatic analysis of the oldest Buddhism, which emphasizes anatta. This romantic vision is also recognizable in the works of Ken Wilber.
In the oldest Buddhism this essentialism is not recognizable. According to critics it doesn't really contribute to a real insight into Buddhism:
...most
of them labour under the old cliché that the goal of Buddhist
psychological analysis is to reveal the hidden mysteries in the human
mind and thereby facilitate the development of a transcendental state of
consciousness beyond the reach of linguistic expression.
Enlightenment and experience
A common reference in western culture is the notion of "enlightenment experience". This notion can be traced back to William James, who used the term "religious experience" in his 1902 book, The Varieties of Religious Experience. Wayne Proudfoot traces the roots of the notion of "religious experience" further back to the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher
(1768–1834), who argued that religion is based on a feeling of the
infinite. Schleiermacher used the notion of "religious experience" to
defend religion against the growing scientific and secular critique.
It was popularised by the Transcendentalists, and exported to Asia via missionaries. Transcendentalism developed as a reaction against 18th Century rationalism, John Locke's philosophy of Sensualism, and the predestination of New England Calvinism. It is fundamentally a variety of diverse sources such as Hindu texts like the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, various religions, and German idealism.
It was adopted by many scholars of religion, of which William James was the most influential.
The notion of "experience" has been criticised.
Robert Sharf points out that "experience" is a typical western term,
which has found its way into Asian religiosity via western influences.
The notion of "experience" introduces a false notion of duality
between "experiencer" and "experienced", whereas the essence of kensho
is the realisation of the "non-duality" of observer and observed. "Pure experience" does not exist; all experience is mediated by intellectual and cognitive activity.
The specific teachings and practices of a specific tradition may even
determine what "experience" someone has, which means that this
"experience" is not the proof of the teaching, but a result of the teaching. A pure consciousness without concepts, reached by "cleaning the doors of perception" as per romantic poet William Blake, would, according to Mohr, be an overwhelming chaos of sensory input without coherence.
Bodhi Day
Sakyamuni's awakening is celebrated on Bodhi Day. In Sri Lanka and Japan different days are used for this celebration.
According to the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka, Sakyamuni reached Buddhahood at the full moon in May. This is celebrated at Wesak Poya, the full moon in May, as Sambuddhatva jayanthi (also known as Sambuddha jayanthi).
The Zen tradition claims the Buddha reached his decisive insight on 8
December. This is celebrated in Zen monasteries with a very intensive
eight-day session of Rōhatsu.
True self (also known as real self, authentic self, original self and vulnerable self) and false self (also known as fake self, idealized self, superficial self and pseudo self) are psychological concepts, originally introduced into psychoanalysis in 1960 by Donald Winnicott.
Winnicott used true self to describe a sense of self based on
spontaneous authentic experience and a feeling of being alive, having a
real self. The false self, by contrast, Winnicott saw as a defensive façade,
which in extreme cases could leave its holders lacking spontaneity and
feeling dead and empty, behind a mere appearance of being real.
The concepts are often used in connection with narcissism.
Characteristics
Winnicott
saw the true self as rooted from early infancy in the experience of
being alive, including blood pumping and lungs breathing – what
Winnicott called simply being. Out of this, the baby creates the experience of a sense of reality, a sense that life is worth living. The baby's spontaneous, nonverbal gestures derive from that instinctual sense, and if responded to by the parents, become the basis for the continuing development of the true self.
However, when what Winnicott was careful to describe as good enough parenting – i.e., not necessarily perfect – was not
in place, the infant's spontaneity was in danger of being encroached on
by the need for compliance with the parents' wishes/expectations.
The result for Winnicott could be the creation of what he called the
false self, where "Other people's expectations can become of overriding
importance, overlaying or contradicting the original sense of self, the
one connected to the very roots of one's being".
The danger he saw was that "through this false self, the infant builds
up a false set of relationships, and by means of introjections even
attains a show of being real", while, in fact, merely concealing a barren emptiness behind an independent-seeming façade.
The danger was particularly acute where the baby had to provide
attunement for the mother/parents, rather than vice versa, building up a
sort of dissociated recognition of the object on an impersonal, not
personal and spontaneous basis.
But while such a pathological false self stifled the spontaneous
gestures of the true self in favour of a lifeless imitation, Winnicott
nevertheless considered it of vital importance in preventing something
worse: the annihilating experience of the exploitation of the hidden
true self itself.
Precursors
There was much in psychoanalytic theory on which Winnicott could draw for his concept of the false self. Helene Deutsch had described the "as if" personalities, with their pseudo relationships substituting for real ones. Winnicott's analyst, Joan Riviere, had explored the concept of the narcissist's masquerade – superficial assent concealing a subtle hidden struggle for control. Freud's own late theory of the ego as the product of identifications came close to viewing it only as a false self; while Winnicott's true/false distinction has also been compared to Michael Balint's "basic fault" and to Ronald Fairbairn's notion of the "compromised ego".
Erich Fromm, in his book The Fear of Freedom
distinguished between original self and pseudo self – the
inauthenticality of the latter being a way to escape the loneliness of
freedom; while much earlier the existentialist like Kierkegaard
had claimed that "to will to be that self which one truly is, is
indeed the opposite of despair" – the despair of choosing "to be another
than himself".
Karen Horney, in her 1950 book, Neurosis and Human Growth,
based her idea of "true self" and "false self" through the view of
self-improvement, interpreting it as real self and ideal self, with the
real self being what one currently is and the ideal self being what one
could become.
Later developments
The
second half of the twentieth century has seen Winnicott's ideas
extended and applied in a variety of contexts, both in psychoanalysis
and beyond.
Kohut
Kohut extended Winnicott's work in his investigation of narcissism, seeing narcissists as evolving a defensive armor around their damaged inner selves.
He considered it less pathological to identify with the damaged
remnants of the self, than to achieve coherence through identification
with an external personality at the cost of one's own autonomous
creativity.
Lowen
Alexander Lowen identified narcissists as having a true and a false,
or superficial, self. The false self rests on the surface, as the self
presented to the world. It stands in contrast to the true self, which
resides behind the facade or image. This true self is the feeling self,
but for the narcissist the feeling self must be hidden and denied. Since
the superficial self represents submission and conformity, the inner or
true self is rebellious and angry. This underlying rebellion and anger
can never be fully suppressed since it is an expression of the life
force in that person. But because of the denial, it cannot be expressed directly. Instead it shows up in the narcissist's acting out. And it can become a perverse force.
Masterson
James F. Masterson argued that all the personality disorders
crucially involve the conflict between a person's two selves: the false
self, which the very young child constructs to please the mother, and
the true self. The psychotherapy of personality disorders is an attempt
to put people back in touch with their real selves.
Symington
Symington developed Winnicott's contrast between true and false self to cover the sources
of personal action, contrasting an autonomous and a discordant source
of action – the latter drawn from the internalisation of external
influences and pressures.
Thus for example parental dreams of self-glorification by way of their
child's achievements can be internalised as an alien discordant source
of action. Symington stressed however the intentional
element in the individual's abandoning the autonomous self in favour of
a false self or narcissistic mask – something he considered Winnicott
to have overlooked.
Vaknin
As part of what has been described as a personal mission by self-confessed narcissist and author Sam Vaknin to raise the profile of the condition.
Vaknin has highlighted the role of the false self in narcissism. The
false self replaces the narcissist's true self and is intended to shield
him from hurt and narcissistic injury by self-imputing omnipotence. The narcissist pretends that his false self is real and demands that others affirm this confabulation, meanwhile keeping his real imperfect true self under wraps.
For Vaknin, the false self is by far more important to the
narcissist than his dilapidated, dysfunctional true self; and in
contrast to the psychoanalysts he does not believe in the ability to
resuscitate it through therapy.
Miller
Alice Miller cautiously warns that a child/patient may not have any formed true self, waiting behind the false self facade;
and that as a result freeing the true self is not as simple as the
Winnicottian image of the butterfly emerging from its cocoon. If a true self can be developed, however, she considered that the empty grandiosity of the false self could give way to a new sense of autonomous vitality.
Orbach: false bodies
Susie Orbach saw the false self as an overdevelopment (under parental
pressure) of certain aspects of the self at the expense of other
aspects – of the full potential of the self – producing thereby an
abiding distrust of what emerges spontaneously from the individual
himself or herself. Orbach went on to extend Winnicott's account of how environmental failure can lead to an inner splitting of mind and body, so as to cover the idea of the false body – falsified sense of one's own body.
Orbach saw the female false body in particular as built upon
identifications with others, at the cost of an inner sense of
authenticity and reliability.
Breaking up a monolithic but false body-sense in the process of therapy
could allow for the emergence of a range of authentic (even if often
painful) body feelings in the patient.
Jungian persona
Jungians have explored the overlap between Jung's concept of the persona and Winnicott's false self;
but, while noting similarities, consider that only the most rigidly
defensive persona approximates to the pathological status of the false
self.
Stern's tripartite self
Daniel Stern considered Winnicott's sense of "going on being" as constitutive of the core, pre-verbal self.
He also explored how language could be used to reinforce a false sense
of self, leaving the true self linguistically opaque and disavowed. He ended, however, by proposing a three-fold division of social, private, and of disavowed self.
Criticisms
Neville Symington criticised Winnicott for failing to integrate his false self insight with the theory of ego and id. Similarly, continental analysts like Jean-Bertrand Pontalis have made use of true/false self as a clinical distinction, while having reservations about its theoretical status.
The philosopher Michel Foucault took issue more broadly with the concept of a true self on the anti-essentialist grounds that the self was a construct – something one had to evolve through a process of subjectification, an aesthetics of self-formation, not something simply waiting to be uncovered: "we have to create ourselves as a work of art".
Literary examples
Wuthering Heights has been interpreted in terms of the true self's struggle to break through the conventional overlay.
In the novel, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, the heroine saw her outward personality as a mere ghost of a Semblance, behind which her true self hid ever more completely.
Sylvia Plath's poetry has been interpreted in terms of the conflict of the true and false selves.
The philosophy of artificial intelligence is a branch of the philosophy of technology that explores artificial intelligence and its implications for knowledge and understanding of intelligence, ethics, consciousness, epistemology, and free will.
Furthermore, the technology is concerned with the creation of
artificial animals or artificial people (or, at least, artificial
creatures; see artificial life) so the discipline is of considerable interest to philosophers. These factors contributed to the emergence of the philosophy of artificial intelligence. Some scholars argue that the AI community's dismissal of philosophy is detrimental.
The philosophy of artificial intelligence attempts to answer such questions as follows:
Can a machine act intelligently? Can it solve any problem that a person would solve by thinking?
Are human intelligence and machine intelligence the same? Is the human brain essentially a computer?
Can a machine have a mind, mental states, and consciousness in the same sense that a human being can? Can it feel how things are?
Questions like these reflect the divergent interests of AI researchers, cognitive scientists and philosophers
respectively. The scientific answers to these questions depend on the
definition of "intelligence" and "consciousness" and exactly which
"machines" are under discussion.
Important propositions in the philosophy of AI include some of the following:
Turing's "polite convention": If a machine behaves as intelligently as a human being, then it is as intelligent as a human being.
The Dartmouth proposal:
"Every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can be
so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it."
John Searle's strong AI hypothesis:
"The appropriately programmed computer with the right inputs and
outputs would thereby have a mind in exactly the same sense human beings
have minds."
Hobbes'
mechanism: "For 'reason' ... is nothing but 'reckoning,' that is adding
and subtracting, of the consequences of general names agreed upon for
the 'marking' and 'signifying' of our thoughts..."
Can a machine display general intelligence?
Is it possible to create a machine that can solve all
the problems humans solve using their intelligence? This question
defines the scope of what machines could do in the future and guides the
direction of AI research. It only concerns the behavior of machines and ignores the issues of interest to psychologists, cognitive scientists and philosophers; to answer this question, it does not matter whether a machine is really thinking (as a person thinks) or is just acting like it is thinking.
The basic position of most AI researchers is summed up in this statement, which appeared in the proposal for the Dartmouth workshop of 1956:
"Every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence
can be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate
it."
Arguments against the basic premise must show that building a working
AI system is impossible because there is some practical limit to the
abilities of computers or that there is some special quality of the
human mind that is necessary for intelligent behavior and yet cannot be
duplicated by a machine (or by the methods of current AI research).
Arguments in favor of the basic premise must show that such a system is
possible.
It is also possible to sidestep the connection between the two
parts of the above proposal. For instance, machine learning, beginning
with Turing's infamous child machine proposal
essentially achieves the desired feature of intelligence without a
precise design-time description as to how it would exactly work. The
account on robot tacit knowledge eliminates the need for a precise description all together.
The first step to answering the question is to clearly define "intelligence".
Intelligence
The "standard interpretation" of the Turing test.
Turing test
Alan Turing
reduced the problem of defining intelligence to a simple question about
conversation. He suggests that: if a machine can answer any
question put to it, using the same words that an ordinary person would,
then we may call that machine intelligent. A modern version of his
experimental design would use an online chat room,
where one of the participants is a real person and one of the
participants is a computer program. The program passes the test if no
one can tell which of the two participants is human.
Turing notes that no one (except philosophers) ever asks the question
"can people think?" He writes "instead of arguing continually over this
point, it is usual to have a polite convention that everyone thinks". Turing's test extends this polite convention to machines:
If a machine acts as intelligently as a human being, then it is as intelligent as a human being.
One criticism of the Turing test
is that it only measures the "humanness" of the machine's behavior,
rather than the "intelligence" of the behavior. Since human behavior and
intelligent behavior are not exactly the same thing, the test fails to
measure intelligence. Stuart J. Russell and Peter Norvig
write that "aeronautical engineering texts do not define the goal of
their field as 'making machines that fly so exactly like pigeons that
they can fool other pigeons'".
Intelligent agent definition
Simple reflex agent
Twenty-first century AI research defines intelligence in terms of intelligent agents.
An "agent" is something which perceives and acts in an environment. A
"performance measure" defines what counts as success for the agent.
"If an agent acts so as to maximize the expected value of a
performance measure based on past experience and knowledge then it is
intelligent."
Definitions like this one try to capture the essence of intelligence.
They have the advantage that, unlike the Turing test, they do not also
test for unintelligent human traits such as making typing mistakes or the ability to be insulted. They have the disadvantage that they can fail to differentiate between
"things that think" and "things that do not". By this definition, even a
thermostat has a rudimentary intelligence.
Arguments that a machine can display general intelligence
Hubert Dreyfus
describes this argument as claiming that "if the nervous system obeys
the laws of physics and chemistry, which we have every reason to suppose
it does, then .... we ... ought to be able to reproduce the behavior of
the nervous system with some physical device". This argument, first introduced as early as 1943 and vividly described by Hans Moravec in 1988, is now associated with futurist Ray Kurzweil, who estimates that computer power will be sufficient for a complete brain simulation by the year 2029. A non-real-time simulation of a thalamocortical model that has the size of the human brain (1011 neurons) was performed in 2005 and it took 50 days to simulate 1 second of brain dynamics on a cluster of 27 processors.
Few disagree that a brain simulation is possible in theory, even critics of AI such as Hubert Dreyfus and John Searle.
However, Searle points out that, in principle, anything can be
simulated by a computer; thus, bringing the definition to its breaking
point leads to the conclusion that any process at all can technically be
considered "computation". "What we wanted to know is what distinguishes
the mind from thermostats and livers," he writes.
Thus, merely mimicking the functioning of a brain would in itself be an
admission of ignorance regarding intelligence and the nature of the
mind.
Human thinking is symbol processing
In 1963, Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon proposed that "symbol manipulation" was the essence of both human and machine intelligence. They wrote:
"A physical symbol system has the necessary and sufficient means of general intelligent action."
This claim is very strong: it implies both that human thinking is a kind of symbol manipulation (because a symbol system is necessary for intelligence) and that machines can be intelligent (because a symbol system is sufficient for intelligence).
Another version of this position was described by philosopher Hubert Dreyfus, who called it "the psychological assumption":
"The mind can be viewed as a device operating on bits of information according to formal rules."
The "symbols" that Newell, Simon and Dreyfus discussed were word-like
and high level — symbols that directly correspond with objects in the
world, such as <dog> and <tail>. Most AI programs written
between 1956 and 1990 used this kind of symbol. Modern AI, based on
statistics and mathematical optimization, does not use the high-level
"symbol processing" that Newell and Simon discussed.
Arguments against symbol processing
These arguments show that human thinking does not consist (solely) of high level symbol manipulation. They do not show that artificial intelligence is impossible, only that more than symbol processing is required.
Gödelian anti-mechanist arguments
In 1931, Kurt Gödel proved with an incompleteness theorem that it is always possible to construct a "Gödel statement" that a given consistent formal system
of logic (such as a high-level symbol manipulation program) could not
prove. Despite being a true statement, the constructed Gödel statement
is unprovable in the given system. (The truth of the constructed Gödel
statement is contingent on the consistency of the given system; applying
the same process to a subtly inconsistent system will appear to
succeed, but will actually yield a false "Gödel statement" instead.)
More speculatively, Gödel conjectured that the human mind can correctly
eventually determine the truth or falsity of any well-grounded
mathematical statement (including any possible Gödel statement), and
that therefore the human mind's power is not reducible to a mechanism. Philosopher John Lucas (since 1961) and Roger Penrose (since 1989) have championed this philosophical anti-mechanist argument.
Gödelian anti-mechanist arguments tend to rely on the innocuous-seeming
claim that a system of human mathematicians (or some idealization of
human mathematicians) is both consistent (completely free of error) and
believes fully in its own consistency (and can make all logical
inferences that follow from its own consistency, including belief in its
Gödel statement). This is provably impossible for a Turing machine
(and, by an informal extension, any known type of mechanical computer)
to do; therefore, the Gödelian concludes that human reasoning is too
powerful to be captured in a machine.
However, the modern consensus in the scientific and mathematical
community is that actual human reasoning is inconsistent; that any
consistent "idealized version" H of human reasoning would
logically be forced to adopt a healthy but counter-intuitive open-minded
skepticism about the consistency of H (otherwise H is
provably inconsistent); and that Gödel's theorems do not lead to any
valid argument that humans have mathematical reasoning capabilities
beyond what a machine could ever duplicate. This consensus that Gödelian anti-mechanist arguments are doomed to failure is laid out strongly in Artificial Intelligence: "any attempt to utilize (Gödel's incompleteness results) to attack the computationalist thesis is bound to be illegitimate, since these results are quite consistent with the computationalist thesis."
More pragmatically, Russell and Norvig note that Gödel's argument
only applies to what can theoretically be proved, given an infinite
amount of memory and time. In practice, real machines (including humans)
have finite resources and will have difficulty proving many theorems.
It is not necessary to prove everything in order to be intelligent.
Less formally, Douglas Hofstadter, in his Pulitzer prize winning book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, states that these "Gödel-statements" always refer to the system itself, drawing an analogy to the way the Epimenides paradox uses statements that refer to themselves, such as "this statement is false" or "I am lying". But, of course, the Epimenides paradox applies to anything that makes statements, whether they are machines or humans, even Lucas himself. Consider:
Lucas can't assert the truth of this statement.
This statement is true but cannot be asserted by Lucas. This shows
that Lucas himself is subject to the same limits that he describes for
machines, as are all people, and so Lucas's argument is pointless.
After concluding that human reasoning is non-computable, Penrose
went on to controversially speculate that some kind of hypothetical
non-computable processes involving the collapse of quantum mechanical
states give humans a special advantage over existing computers.
Existing quantum computers are only capable of reducing the complexity
of Turing computable tasks and are still restricted to tasks within the
scope of Turing machines. By Penrose and Lucas's arguments, existing quantum computers are not sufficient,
so Penrose seeks for some other process involving new physics, for
instance quantum gravity which might manifest new physics at the scale
of the Planck mass
via spontaneous quantum collapse of the wave function. These states, he
suggested, occur both within neurons and also spanning more than one
neuron.
However, other scientists point out that there is no plausible organic
mechanism in the brain for harnessing any sort of quantum computation,
and furthermore that the timescale of quantum decoherence seems too fast
to influence neuron firing.
Dreyfus: the primacy of implicit skills
Hubert Dreyfus argued that human intelligence
and expertise depended primarily on implicit skill rather than
explicit symbolic manipulation, and argued that these skills would never
be captured in formal rules.
Dreyfus's argument had been anticipated by Turing in his 1950 paper Computing machinery and intelligence, where he had classified this as the "argument from the informality of behavior."
Turing argued in response that, just because we do not know the rules
that govern a complex behavior, this does not mean that no such rules
exist. He wrote: "we cannot so easily convince ourselves of the absence
of complete laws of behaviour ... The only way we know of for finding
such laws is scientific observation, and we certainly know of no
circumstances under which we could say, 'We have searched enough. There
are no such laws.'"
Russell and Norvig point out that, in the years since Dreyfus
published his critique, progress has been made towards discovering the
"rules" that govern unconscious reasoning. The situated movement in robotics research attempts to capture our unconscious skills at perception and attention. Computational intelligence paradigms, such as neural nets, evolutionary algorithms and so on are mostly directed at simulated unconscious reasoning and learning. Statistical approaches to AI can make predictions which approach the accuracy of human intuitive guesses. Research into commonsense knowledge
has focused on reproducing the "background" or context of knowledge. In
fact, AI research in general has moved away from high level symbol
manipulation, towards new models that are intended to capture more of
our unconscious reasoning. Historian and AI researcher Daniel Crevier
wrote that "time has proven the accuracy and perceptiveness of some of
Dreyfus's comments. Had he formulated them less aggressively,
constructive actions they suggested might have been taken much earlier."
Can a machine have a mind, consciousness, and mental states?
A physical symbol system can have a mind and mental states.
Searle distinguished this position from what he called "weak AI":
A physical symbol system can act intelligently.
Searle introduced the terms to isolate strong AI from weak AI so he
could focus on what he thought was the more interesting and debatable
issue. He argued that even if we assume that we had a computer
program that acted exactly like a human mind, there would still be a
difficult philosophical question that needed to be answered.
Neither of Searle's two positions are of great concern to AI
research, since they do not directly answer the question "can a machine
display general intelligence?" (unless it can also be shown that
consciousness is necessary for intelligence). Turing wrote "I do
not wish to give the impression that I think there is no mystery about
consciousness… [b]ut I do not think these mysteries necessarily need to
be solved before we can answer the question [of whether machines can
think]." Russell and Norvig agree: "Most AI researchers take the weak AI hypothesis for granted, and don't care about the strong AI hypothesis."
There are a few researchers who believe that consciousness is an essential element in intelligence, such as Igor Aleksander, Stan Franklin, Ron Sun, and Pentti Haikonen, although their definition of "consciousness" strays very close to "intelligence."
Before we can answer this question, we must be clear what we mean by "minds", "mental states" and "consciousness".
Consciousness, minds, mental states, meaning
The words "mind" and "consciousness" are used by different communities in different ways. Some new age thinkers, for example, use the word "consciousness" to describe something similar to Bergson's "élan vital": an invisible, energetic fluid that permeates life and especially the mind. Science fiction writers use the word to describe some essential
property that makes us human: a machine or alien that is "conscious"
will be presented as a fully human character, with intelligence,
desires, will, insight, pride and so on. (Science fiction writers also use the words "sentience", "sapience," "self-awareness" or "ghost" - as in the Ghost in the Shell manga and anime series - to describe this essential human property). For others, the words "mind" or "consciousness" are used as a kind of secular synonym for the soul.
For philosophers, neuroscientists and cognitive scientists,
the words are used in a way that is both more precise and more mundane:
they refer to the familiar, everyday experience of having a "thought in
your head", like a perception, a dream, an intention or a plan, and to
the way we know something, or mean something or understand something. "It's not hard to give a commonsense definition of consciousness" observes philosopher John Searle. What is mysterious and fascinating is not so much what it is but how
it is: how does a lump of fatty tissue and electricity give rise to
this (familiar) experience of perceiving, meaning or thinking?
Philosophers call this the hard problem of consciousness. It is the latest version of a classic problem in the philosophy of mind called the "mind-body problem." A related problem is the problem of meaning or understanding (which philosophers call "intentionality"): what is the connection between our thoughts and what we are thinking about (i.e. objects and situations out in the world)? A third issue is the problem of experience (or "phenomenology"): If two people see the same thing, do they have the same experience? Or are there things "inside their head" (called "qualia") that can be different from person to person?
Neurobiologists believe all these problems will be solved as we begin to identify the neural correlates of consciousness:
the actual relationship between the machinery in our heads and its
collective properties; such as the mind, experience and understanding.
Some of the harshest critics of artificial intelligence
agree that the brain is just a machine, and that consciousness and
intelligence are the result of physical processes in the brain.
The difficult philosophical question is this: can a computer program,
running on a digital machine that shuffles the binary digits of zero and
one, duplicate the ability of the neurons to create minds, with mental states (like understanding or perceiving), and ultimately, the experience of consciousness?
Arguments that a computer cannot have a mind and mental states
Searle's Chinese room
John Searle asks us to consider a thought experiment:
suppose we have written a computer program that passes the Turing test
and demonstrates general intelligent action. Suppose, specifically that
the program can converse in fluent Chinese. Write the program on 3x5
cards and give them to an ordinary person who does not speak Chinese.
Lock the person into a room and have him follow the instructions on the
cards. He will copy out Chinese characters and pass them in and out of
the room through a slot. From the outside, it will appear that the
Chinese room contains a fully intelligent person who speaks Chinese. The
question is this: is there anyone (or anything) in the room that
understands Chinese? That is, is there anything that has the mental
state of understanding, or which has consciousawareness of what is being discussed in Chinese? The man is clearly not aware. The room cannot be aware. The cards certainly aren't aware. Searle concludes that the Chinese room, or any other physical symbol system, cannot have a mind.
Searle goes on to argue that actual mental states and consciousness require (yet to be described) "actual physical-chemical properties of actual human brains." He argues there are special "causal properties" of brains and neurons that gives rise to minds: in his words "brains cause minds."
Related arguments: Leibniz' mill, Davis's telephone exchange, Block's Chinese nation and Blockhead
Gottfried Leibniz
made essentially the same argument as Searle in 1714, using the thought
experiment of expanding the brain until it was the size of a mill. In 1974, Lawrence Davis imagined duplicating the brain using telephone lines and offices staffed by people, and in 1978 Ned Block
envisioned the entire population of China involved in such a brain
simulation. This thought experiment is called "the Chinese Nation" or
"the Chinese Gym". Ned Block also proposed his Blockhead argument, which is a version of the Chinese room in which the program has been re-factored into a simple set of rules of the form "see this, do that", removing all mystery from the program.
Responses to the Chinese room
Responses to the Chinese room emphasize several different points.
The systems reply and the virtual mind reply: This reply argues that the system,
including the man, the program, the room, and the cards, is what
understands Chinese. Searle claims that the man in the room is the only
thing which could possibly "have a mind" or "understand", but others
disagree, arguing that it is possible for there to be two minds
in the same physical place, similar to the way a computer can
simultaneously "be" two machines at once: one physical (like a Macintosh) and one "virtual" (like a word processor).
Speed, power and complexity replies:
Several critics point out that the man in the room would probably take
millions of years to respond to a simple question, and would require
"filing cabinets" of astronomical proportions. This brings the clarity
of Searle's intuition into doubt.
Robot reply:
To truly understand, some believe the Chinese Room needs eyes and
hands. Hans Moravec writes: 'If we could graft a robot to a reasoning
program, we wouldn't need a person to provide the meaning anymore: it
would come from the physical world."
Brain simulator reply:
What if the program simulates the sequence of nerve firings at the
synapses of an actual brain of an actual Chinese speaker? The man in the
room would be simulating an actual brain. This is a variation on the
"systems reply" that appears more plausible because "the system" now
clearly operates like a human brain, which strengthens the intuition
that there is something besides the man in the room that could
understand Chinese.
Other minds reply and the epiphenomena reply: Several people have noted that Searle's argument is just a version of the problem of other minds,
applied to machines. Since it is difficult to decide if people are
"actually" thinking, we should not be surprised that it is difficult to
answer the same question about machines.
A related question is whether "consciousness" (as Searle
understands it) exists. Searle argues that the experience of
consciousness can't be detected by examining the behavior of a machine, a
human being or any other animal. Daniel Dennett
points out that natural selection cannot preserve a feature of an
animal that has no effect on the behavior of the animal, and thus
consciousness (as Searle understands it) can't be produced by natural
selection. Therefore either natural selection did not produce
consciousness, or "strong AI" is correct in that consciousness can be
detected by suitably designed Turing test.
Is thinking a kind of computation?
The computational theory of mind or "computationalism" claims that the relationship between mind and brain is similar (if not identical) to the relationship between a running program and a computer. The idea has philosophical roots in Hobbes (who claimed reasoning was "nothing more than reckoning"), Leibniz (who attempted to create a logical calculus of all human ideas), Hume (who thought perception could be reduced to "atomic impressions") and even Kant (who analyzed all experience as controlled by formal rules). The latest version is associated with philosophers Hilary Putnam and Jerry Fodor.
This question bears on our earlier questions: if the human brain
is a kind of computer then computers can be both intelligent and
conscious, answering both the practical and philosophical questions of
AI. In terms of the practical question of AI ("Can a machine display
general intelligence?"), some versions of computationalism make the
claim that (as Hobbes wrote):
Reasoning is nothing but reckoning.
In other words, our intelligence derives from a form of calculation, similar to arithmetic. This is the physical symbol system
hypothesis discussed above, and it implies that artificial intelligence
is possible. In terms of the philosophical question of AI ("Can a
machine have mind, mental states and consciousness?"), most versions of computationalism claim that (as Stevan Harnad characterizes it):
Mental states are just implementations of (the right) computer programs.
This is John Searle's "strong AI" discussed above, and it is the real target of the Chinese room argument (according to Harnad).
Other related questions
Can a machine have emotions?
If "emotions" are defined only in terms of their effect on behavior or on how they function inside an organism, then emotions can be viewed as a mechanism that an intelligent agent uses to maximize the utility of its actions. Given this definition of emotion, Hans Moravec believes that "robots in general will be quite emotional about being nice people". Fear is a source of urgency. Empathy is a necessary component of good human computer interaction.
He says robots "will try to please you in an apparently selfless manner
because it will get a thrill out of this positive reinforcement. You
can interpret this as a kind of love." Daniel Crevier
writes "Moravec's point is that emotions are just devices for
channeling behavior in a direction beneficial to the survival of one's
species."
Can a machine be self-aware?
"Self-awareness", as noted above, is sometimes used by science fiction writers as a name for the essential human property that makes a character fully human. Turing
strips away all other properties of human beings and reduces the
question to "can a machine be the subject of its own thought?" Can it think about itself? Viewed in this way, a program can be written that can report on its own internal states, such as a debugger.
Though arguably self-awareness often presumes a bit more capability; a
machine that can ascribe meaning in some way to not only its own state
but in general postulating questions without solid answers: the
contextual nature of its existence now; how it compares to past states
or plans for the future, the limits and value of its work product, how
it perceives its performance to be valued-by or compared to others.
Can a machine be original or creative?
Turing
reduces this to the question of whether a machine can "take us by
surprise" and argues that this is obviously true, as any programmer can
attest. He notes that, with enough storage capacity, a computer can behave in an astronomical number of different ways. It must be possible, even trivial, for a computer that can represent ideas to combine them in new ways. (Douglas Lenat's Automated Mathematician, as one example, combined ideas to discover new mathematical truths.) Kaplan
and Haenlein suggest that machines can display scientific creativity,
while it seems likely that humans will have the upper hand where
artistic creativity is concerned.
In 2009, scientists at Aberystwyth University in Wales and the
U.K's University of Cambridge designed a robot called Adam that they
believe to be the first machine to independently come up with new
scientific findings. Also in 2009, researchers at Cornell developed Eureqa,
a computer program that extrapolates formulas to fit the data inputted,
such as finding the laws of motion from a pendulum's motion.
Can a machine be benevolent or hostile?
This question (like many others in the philosophy of artificial
intelligence) can be presented in two forms. "Hostility" can be defined
in terms function or behavior,
in which case "hostile" becomes synonymous with "dangerous". Or it can
be defined in terms of intent: can a machine "deliberately" set out to
do harm? The latter is the question "can a machine have conscious
states?" (such as intentions) in another form.
The question of whether highly intelligent and completely
autonomous machines would be dangerous has been examined in detail by
futurists (such as the Machine Intelligence Research Institute). The obvious element of drama has also made the subject popular in science fiction, which has considered many differently possible scenarios where intelligent machines pose a threat to mankind; see Artificial intelligence in fiction.
One issue is that machines may acquire the autonomy and intelligence required to be dangerous very quickly. Vernor Vinge
has suggested that over just a few years, computers will suddenly
become thousands or millions of times more intelligent than humans. He
calls this "the Singularity." He suggests that it may be somewhat or possibly very dangerous for humans. This is discussed by a philosophy called Singularitarianism.
In 2009, academics and technical experts attended a conference to
discuss the potential impact of robots and computers and the impact of
the hypothetical possibility that they could become self-sufficient and
able to make their own decisions. They discussed the possibility and the
extent to which computers and robots might be able to acquire any level
of autonomy, and to what degree they could use such abilities to
possibly pose any threat or hazard. They noted that some machines have
acquired various forms of semi-autonomy, including being able to find
power sources on their own and being able to independently choose
targets to attack with weapons. They also noted that some computer viruses can evade elimination and have achieved "cockroach intelligence." They noted that self-awareness as depicted in science-fiction is probably unlikely, but that there were other potential hazards and pitfalls.
Some experts and academics have questioned the use of robots for
military combat, especially when such robots are given some degree of
autonomous functions.
The US Navy has funded a report which indicates that as military robots
become more complex, there should be greater attention to implications
of their ability to make autonomous decisions.
Some have suggested a need to build "Friendly AI",
meaning that the advances which are already occurring with AI should
also include an effort to make AI intrinsically friendly and humane.
Can a machine imitate all human characteristics?
Turing
said "It is customary... to offer a grain of comfort, in the form of a
statement that some peculiarly human characteristic could never be
imitated by a machine. ... I cannot offer any such comfort, for I
believe that no such bounds can be set."
Turing noted that there are many arguments of the form "a machine will never do X", where X can be many things, such as:
Be kind, resourceful, beautiful, friendly, have
initiative, have a sense of humor, tell right from wrong, make mistakes,
fall in love, enjoy strawberries and cream, make someone fall in love
with it, learn from experience, use words properly, be the subject of
its own thought, have as much diversity of behaviour as a man, do
something really new.
Turing argues that these objections are often based on naive
assumptions about the versatility of machines or are "disguised forms of
the argument from consciousness". Writing a program that exhibits one
of these behaviors "will not make much of an impression."
All of these arguments are tangential to the basic premise of AI,
unless it can be shown that one of these traits is essential for general
intelligence.
Can a machine have a soul?
Finally, those who believe in the existence of a soul may argue that "Thinking is a function of man's immortal soul." Alan Turing called this "the theological objection". He writes
In attempting to construct such machines we should not be
irreverently usurping His power of creating souls, any more than we are
in the procreation of children: rather we are, in either case,
instruments of His will providing mansions for the souls that He
creates.
Views on the role of philosophy
Some scholars argue that the AI community's dismissal of philosophy is detrimental. In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, some philosophers argue that the role of philosophy in AI is underappreciated. Physicist David Deutsch argues that without an understanding of philosophy or its concepts, AI development would suffer from a lack of progress.
