I Am a Strange Loop - Douglas R. Hofstadter [11]
SOCRATES: That is an interesting thought, Plato. Do you say that knowing is not so familiar as we think it is?
PLATO: Yes. Because we humans have knowledge, or convictions, we are humans, yet when we try to analyze knowing itself, it recedes, and evades us.
SOCRATES: Then had one not better be suspicious of what we call “knowing”, or “conviction”, and not take it so much for granted?
PLATO: Precisely. We must be cautious in saying “I know”, and we must ponder what it truly means to say “I know” when our minds would have us say it.
SOCRATES: True. If I asked you, “Are you alive?”, you would doubtless reply, “Yes, I am alive.” And if I asked you, “How do you know that you are alive?”, you would say “I feel it, I know I am alive — indeed, is not knowing and feeling one is alive being alive?” Is that not right?
PLATO: Yes, I would certainly say something to that effect.
SOCRATES: Now let us suppose that a machine had been constructed which was capable of constructing English sentences and answering questions. And suppose I asked this English machine, “Are you alive?” and suppose it gave me precisely the same answers as you did. What would you say as to the validity of its answers?
PLATO: I would first of all object that no machine can know what words are, or mean. A machine merely deals with words in an abstract mechanical fashion, much as canning machines put fruit in cans.
SOCRATES: I do not accept your objections for two reasons. Surely you do not contend that the basic unit of human thought is the word? For it is well known that humans have nerve cells, the laws of whose operation are arithmetical. Secondly, you cautioned earlier that we must be wary of the verb “to know”, yet here you use it quite nonchalantly. What makes you say that no machine could ever “know” what words are, or mean?
PLATO: Socrates, do you argue that machines can know facts, as we humans do?
SOCRATES: You declared just now that you yourself cannot even explain what knowing is. How did you learn the verb “to know” as a child?
PLATO: Evidently, I assimilated it from hearing it used around me.
SOCRATES: Then it was by automatic action that you gained control of it.
PLATO: No… Well, perhaps I see what you mean. I grew accustomed to hearing it in certain contexts, and thus came to be able to use it myself in those contexts, in a more or less automatic fashion.
SOCRATES: Much as you use language now — without having to reflect on each word?
PLATO: Yes, exactly.
SOCRATES: Thus now, if you say, “I know I am alive”, that sentence is merely a reflex coming from your brain, and is not a product of conscious thought.
PLATO: No, no! You or I have used faulty logic. Not all thoughts I utter are simply products of reflex actions. Some thoughts I think about consciously before uttering.
SOCRATES: In what sense do you think consciously about them?
PLATO: I don’t know. I suppose that I try to find the correct words to describe them.
SOCRATES: What guides you to the correct words?
PLATO: Why, I search logically for synonyms, similar words, and so on, with which I am familiar.
SOCRATES: In other words, habit guides your thought.
PLATO: Yes, my thought is guided by the habit of connecting words with one another systematically.
SOCRATES: Then once again, these conscious thoughts are produced by reflex action.
PLATO: I do not see how I can know I am conscious, how I can feel alive, if this is true, yet I have followed your argument.
SOCRATES: But this argument itself shows that your reaction is merely habit, or reflex action, and that no conscious thought is leading you to say you know you are alive. If you stop to consider it, do you really understand what you mean by saying such a sentence? Or does it just come into your mind without your thinking consciously of it?
PLATO: Indeed, I am so confused I scarcely know.
SOCRATES: It becomes interesting to see how one’s mind fails when working in new channels. Do you see how little you understand of that sentence “I am alive”?
PLATO: Yes, it is truly a sentence which, I