Mill example
The example of the mill (seldom also called the allegory of the mill ) comes from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), who lists it in his 1714 monadology in § 17. Leibniz tries to refute the perception resp. the mental processing of what is perceived as part of consciousness can be explained by looking at the details in the brain.
“One must, by the way, admit that perception and what depends on it cannot be explained for mechanical reasons, that is, from figures and movements. If one imagines, for example, a machine that is made in such a way that it could think, feel and perceive, then one can imagine it enlarged proportionally so that one could step into it like a mill. Assuming this, one will find nothing more than individual parts on inspection of its interior, but never something from which a perception could be explained. ”- Monadology , § 17.
The metaphor with the mechanics of the mill must be seen in the context of the time with the rise of the machine builder, in which the electrochemical fundamentals of the brain were not even rudimentarily known.
Symbol
“Let's assume, mused Leibniz, that humans are actually machines right down to their very last components. He is a mill that thinks. Leibniz imagined in a thought experiment that we could enter the mill. Do we find what we are looking for in the search for thought, for the spirit ? No, said Leibniz, we see parts of the whole labor system, how they turn, push, pull, only the spirit, the thinking remains hidden from us. The parable wisely says not what spirit is, but only what it is not. "
Reception of the mill example
The mill example is still used today when it is argued that humans cannot be compared to a computer .
On the other hand, representatives of so-called hard artificial intelligence like Ray Kurzweil compare the mechanisms of the brain with methods and algorithms that can be understood and imitated like the mechanics of a mill.
“History, in particular, could teach us a lesson in critical caution. Unfortunately, the image of the automaton builders of the 18th century is still spread as naive mechanists and materialists . Admittedly, they were not naive enough to underestimate the difficulties of their mechanistic approach. Although they tried to reconstruct the physiology as faithfully as possible, they were well aware of the - not just technical, but philosophical - limitations of their attempts. They used their artifacts as an opportunity to think about what distinguishes life compared to the machine when the machine can simulate more and more life processes. "
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Eduard Kaeser : Man as a machine. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, August 20, 2011, accessed on May 24, 2016 .
- ↑ Walter Hehl : Interaction - How principles of software change philosophy. Springer, ISBN 978-3-662-48113-4 .
- ↑ Ray Kurzweil: The Secret of Human Thought. Lola Books, 2014, ISBN 978-3-944203-06-5 .