PH's Drug: Ghost in the Machine
Posted: Sun Jun 11, 2023 6:48 am
I came across Gilbert Ryle's book, the Concept of Mind written in 1949, i.e. 74 years ago! in which he introduced the idea of the 'Ghost in the Machine'.
PH has been been 'poisoned' by such an idea to condemn any use the term 'mind' as such 'mind-independent' which is a hinder to moral progress based on human-based moral FSK.
PH's Stupidity: The "Mind" Does not Exist as Real
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40071
PH has been been 'poisoned' by such an idea to condemn any use the term 'mind' as such 'mind-independent' which is a hinder to moral progress based on human-based moral FSK.
PH's Stupidity: The "Mind" Does not Exist as Real
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40071
The above sort of ideas has since been abandoned by modern contemporary analytical philosophers, but yet PH is still bewitched by it.The "ghost in the machine" is a term originally used to describe and critique the concept of the mind existing alongside and separate to the body. In more recent times, the term has several uses, including the concept that the intellectual part of the human mind is influenced by emotions; and within fiction, for an emergent consciousness residing in a computer.
The term originates with British philosopher Gilbert Ryle's description of René Descartes' mind–body dualism. Ryle introduced the phrase in The Concept of Mind (1949)[1] to highlight the view of Descartes and others that mental and physical activity occur simultaneously but separately.
Ryle's Concept of Mind (1949) critiques the notion that the mind is distinct from the body, and refers to the idea as "the ghost in the machine". According to Ryle, the classical theory of mind, or "Cartesian rationalism", makes a basic category mistake (a new logical fallacy Ryle himself invented), as it attempts to analyze the relation between "mind" and "body" as if they were terms of the same logical category. This confusion of logical categories may be seen in other theories of the relation between mind and matter. For example, the idealist theory of mind makes a basic category mistake by attempting to reduce physical reality to the same status as mental reality, while the materialist theory of mind makes a basic category mistake by attempting to reduce mental reality to the same status as physical reality.
"Descartes' Myth"
In his essay "Descartes' Myth", Ryle's philosophical arguments lay out his notion of the mistaken foundations of mind-body dualism. He suggests that, to speak of mind and body as substances, as a dualist does, is to commit a category mistake:[1]
Such in outline is the official theory. I shall often speak of it, with deliberate abusiveness, as "the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine". I hope to prove that it is entirely false, and false not in detail but in principle. It is not merely an assemblage of particular mistakes. It is one big mistake and a mistake of a special kind. It is, namely, a category mistake.
Ryle then attempts to show that the "official doctrine" of mind/body dualism is false by asserting that it confuses two logical-types, or categories, as being compatible: "it represents the facts of mental life as if they belonged to one logical type/category, when they actually belong to another. The dogma is therefore a philosopher's myth."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_machine
