"I first met René Descartes’ famous aphorism, “I think, therefore I am”, when I was a young teen. Naturally I wasted no time in deciding that the Great Man’s thought was trite and glib, a maxim whose proper home was surely the tee-shirt. Later, at university, I took philosophy classes and was surprised to discover that there were people who thought they’d refuted Descartes. How on earth was that possible?
Monsieur Descartes spent his youth as a soldier, seeing action in many battles. Later, when he became an academic, he used to stay in bed ’til noon thinking deep thoughts. Doubt plagued him: how can anyone be sure of anything? As you look around, the things you see, hear and smell could merely be a dream or a staged virtual environment."
Continue reading at sciencefiction.com.
This article touches centrally on the research I did on "First Order Intentional Systems" for my Ph.D. An example again of how artificial intelligence can shed new light on old philosophical puzzles.
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In other news, we successfully assembled the new Dyson vacuum cleaner (this was by no means a given!) and today Clare vacuumed the car with it.
I'm down to do a retrospective review of Heinlein's Starship Troopers so I'd better get back to re-reading it.
