私にとって、最も重要な本の一冊。
ミンスキーが提示した、人の脳／心の働き方についての視点、仮説は、哲学史の中でも独創的、かつ、これからの研究の基礎となるものであり、極めて高い価値を持つものと確信する。
難しいテーマにもかかわらず、これ以上は考えられない平易な文章であった。しかるに、読了までに随分時間がかかったのは、雑事にかまけて読む時間をなかなか確保しなかった自分の怠惰が第一の理由だが、もう一つの理由としては、文章は平易であっても、これまで自分が持っていた考え方がミンスキーによって変えられていくには、やはりそれなりのエネルギーが費やされたということもあるのだろう。
But whenever we fail to find ways to make such repairs, we will have little choice except to add more checks and balances - for example, by adding more Critics and Censors. However, we'll never find any one, foolproof way to choose (for example) between the advantages of immediate actions and the benefits of cautious, reflective thinking. So whatever we do, we can be sure that the road toward "posthuman minds" won't be smooth.
However, a more realistic view would recognize that each human mind that exists today is one result of a process in which decillions of previous creatures on Earth spent their lives reacting, adjusting, adapting, and dying so that some of their descendants might thrive. In that unthinkably vast history, all those creatures contributed to a tremendous set of experiments, each of which may have contributed to giving us slightly more powerful brains.
However, a more realistic view would recognize that each human mind that exists today is one result of a process in which decillions of previous creatures on Earth spent their lives reacting, adjusting, adapting, and dying so that some of their descendants might thrive. In that unthinkably vast history, all those creatures contributed to a tremendous set of experiments, each of which may have contributed to giving us slightly more powerful brains.
We certainly each have some privileged access, but we should not overrate its significance. I suspect that our access to our own thoughts provides more quantity but does not seem to reveal much more about the nature of our own mental activities. Indeed, our self-assessments are sometimes so inept that our friends may have better ideas about how we think.
In other words, it seems to me, the apparent "directness of experience" is an illusion that comes because our higher mental levels have such limited access to the systems we use to recognize, represent, and react to our external and internal conditions.
However, this pleasant and positive strategy may not work well in unfamiliar realms because when we are learning a new technique, we need to work harder with fewer rewards, while enduring the additional stress of being confused and disoriented. Also, it may require us to abandon older techniques and representations that have previously served us well - which might even arouse a sense of loss that brings "negative" feelings akin to grief. Such periods of awkwardness and inepitude would usually cause a person to quit.
after you've solved a difficult problem, you may feel relieved and satisfied, and sometimes may also feel a need to arrange for some sort of inner or outer celebration. Why might we have such rituals? Perhaps there's a special kind of relief that comes when one can dismiss a goal and release the resources that it engaged - along with the stresses that came with them.
