1-2-3-5-6-7-8-9-11-12 (non dettagliati) Nell’era del pollo di Trilussa

Nell’era del pollo di Trilussa

Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation – Tyler Cowen

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Trigger warning – riflessioni a tutto campo sul mondo contemporaneo, in particolare quello del lavoro –

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• Mai tanti giovani disoccupati, mai tanti lavori strapagati... 
• Perchè il grande split sul lavoro? E perché la forbice è destinata ad aumenterà?
• Alcuni lavoratori saranno sostituiti dalle macchine e i loro compensi finiranno nelle mani dei pochi che producono, coordinano o completano il lavoro delle macchine stesse.. 
• Tre forze dietro lo split: macchine intelligenti, globalizzazione e dicotomia tra settori dinamici e settori stagnanti. Esempio: IT è un settore dinamico, la scuola o la siderurgia sono stagnanti… 
• La domanda da farsi: sei un complemento del pc o un suo competitor? Nel secondo caso lascia ogni speranza… 
• Esempi di tecno già al lavoro tra noi: driveless car, giornalismo automatico, dottore automatico, formatore di coppie, pc scacchista, robot industriali, scegliersi il film giusto, costruire e rintracciare profili criminali, predizione esito elezioni (dati i tuoi amici, i film che guardi, i libri che leggi eccetera, chi voti nn è un mistero x nessuno), profilare gli esseri umani come consumatori, macchine della verità, tecnologia self scrutiny Alle macchine nn è richiesta la xfezione, il termine di paragone è l’uomo e in molti casi sono già avanti…
• Chi vince? Chi sono gli amici del pc? Professioni in cui l’elemento umano è imprescindibile: il marketing e i servizi personali… 
• L’abilità + importante: attirare l’ attenzione dei miliardari,magari con servizi personali di nicchia e personalizzati… 
• Perché i manager sono superpagati? Perché coordinano risorse umane e prendono decisioni dove l’elementosoggettivo delle probabilità è forte e la fortuna conta molto…
• O-ring production: dove lavorano grandi talenti occorrono anche professionisti magari meno qualificati ma molto scrupolosi poiché potrebbero distruggere ingente valore. Qui le donne potrebbero avere una chance in più, sono delle attente esecutrici di ordini… 
• Classe media la polarizzazione del mercato del lavoro sarà ancora più radicale (vedi split)… 
• Necessità di un reddito minimo di cittadinanza…
• Grandi opportunità per giovani più brillanti: tanto IQ e poca esperienza. L’esperienza non è più un valore primario: è quello che chiedono i settori acerbi ad alto valore aggiunto. E’ la brain society… 
• Il consulente: i ricconi amano averne quando devono affrontare la complessità. Anche solo per l’aspetto psicologico: qualcuno che gli ascolta, che si interessa ai loro problemi…
• Il piccolo imprenditore? Spesso un disoccupato che si arrangia, rovesciati alcuni schemi mentali… 
• Gli scacchi free style offrono una buna analogia dell’interazione uomo macchina che ci attende. Lo scacchista free style deve prendere decisioni complesse in breve tempo e lo fa elaborando informazioni con la tecnologia integrando il tutto con le sue intuizioni. Una specie di mutante).
• I nuovi dottori raccolgono dati li elaborano integrandoli con intuizione ed esperienza, dopodiché emettono la diagnosi.
• Usa bene il tuo smartphone, sfrutta le sue potenzialità. Se già lo fai sei pronto per il nuovo mercato del lavoro…
• Contro il va dove ti porta il cuore: decidi elaborando informazioni che possano eludere i tuoi bias cognitivi, lascia all’intuizione un ruolo residuale…
• Oggi è il cliente che lavora, bisogna saper convivere contecnologie sofisticate ma imperfette, tecnologie in progress, commessi incompetente che maneggiano macchine meravigliose di cui sai più te di loro… 
• La macchina che ti aiuta ma va integrata di continuo. L’imperfezione aiuta il progresso e la “stampella umana” è imprescindibile. Dobbiamo imparare ad essere “stampelle”… 
• Il mondo sarà più “stupido” (meno vago), sarà un mondo per le macchine. Noi dovremo colmare il gap con la realtà…
• Dobbiamo imparare a convivere con la valutazione meccanizzata: dare il giusto peso ad una meritocrazia artefatta per evitare le frustrazioni.
• Problema: chi giudicherà i giudici della valutazione meccanizzata. Ecco, dovremo farlo noi proprio per alleviare le frustrazioni. Lo studio servirà anche a questo.
• Pericoli di un progresso improvviso (foom). Necessità di welfare estesi in un mondo ad alta diseguaglianza. Il reddito di cittadinanza s’imporrà un po’ ovunque ma non sarà un male: dovendo stabilire un minimo vitale tutto il resto potrà essere considerato eccedente e quindi lasciato alle decisioni private…
• Il new brave world implicherà anche problemi etici.Singolarità: è quel punto in cui l’intelligenza delle macchine supera quella umana.
• Il Test di Turing è un criterio per capire se una macchina è intelligente. Una volta superato il TT non sai con chi parli. Oggi, per esempio, il TT estetico sembra già superato.
• Problemi di cheating: l’accesso a molte fonti attraverso una potenza di calcolo notevole renderà più difficile il giudizio sulle persone.
• Taggare e isolare stringhe di ricerca sarà un’abilità fondamentale. la cultura sarà una playlist.
• Stagnazione dei salari: IT pesa sulla classe media alta quanto l’immigrazione pesa sulle classi medio basse. 
• Cosa compensa questa stagnazione nella ricchezza nazionale: 1) miglior rendimento dei capitali 2) salari skilled workers molto alti 3) prezzi al consumo più bassi… 
• Competizione e crescita sono sempre esistiti, perchè la globalizzazione è un problema? perché bisogna riconvertireuomini e mezzi. E’ la transizione il problema, non la globalizzazione.
• Temi l’outsourcing? L’ open borders la mitiga favorendo anche i conti della previdenza.
• Immigrazione: chi ama la democrazia la favorisce. E’ una forma di democrazia geografica.
• Che istruzione occorre? un’ istruzione che educhi all’umanità, alla cittadinanza, alla produttività.
• Importanza della online education e dei suoi vantaggi (time shifting, prezzi bassi, alta qualità, imparare giocando, testabilità)…
• Il ruolo della fiducia: quando la scienza e il mondo diventano troppo complessi il rischio percepito cresce e il valore della fiducia aumenta. Il fiduciario diventa una figura centrale.
• Economia: big data vs teorici. L’ economista del futuro: un interprete dei dati sfornati dalla macchina. Si va verso un’ unica scienza sociale empirica.
• Trend: + meritocrazia + diseguaglianze + super-motivati pronti a cogliere le occasioni + crisi fiscali. Necessità di far pagare i servizi pubblici a chi se li puo’ permettere, anche quelli finora gratuiti: ISEE a tutto campo.
• L’ impoverimento nei salari da compensare con cpi+tech change: in w/p lavorare su p. 
• Lavorare sulla neutralizzazione dello status: le diseguaglianze non devono più turbarci  e dobbiamo sapere che non esiste una relazione tra diseguaglianze e crimini.
• Lavorare sull’educazione etica: meno divorzi e separazioni . 
• Combatti la secolarizzazione estrema e conserva la tua speranza: + diseguaglianza + rischio+ comunità + religione… la religione è un’assicurazione sociale.

Come lavora un robot?

Work - The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life when Robots Rule the Earth by Robin Hanson

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Premessa: per robot intendiamo macchine dotate di intelligenza artificiale. Probabilmente avremo a che fare con emulatori più che con robot, ovvero con macchine azionate tramite l’ upload di intelligenze umane opportunamente selezionate.

Work Hours

Today, successful people in very competitive jobs, professions, and industries often work a great many hours per week. This makes it plausible that selection for em productivity will produce a world of ems who are also very hard-working, even “workaholic,”

Note:WORK ALCHOLIC

“workaholics” tend to make more money, to be male, and to focus their socializing on scheduled times such as holidays. They also tend rise early to work alone and they often use stimulants (Kemeny 2002; Currey 2013

Note:STIMOLANTI A GO-GO

Many claim that working very long hours is usually counter-productive. For example, it is said that in construction, working 60 hours a week over 2 months actually results in less output than working 40 hours a week over that period (Hanna et al. 2005; Alvanchi et al. 2012; Pozen 2012; Mullainathan and Shafir 2013

Note:MA LAVORARE TANTO RENDE DAVVERO?

the reason most workers today tend to work too many hours might be because the few most productive workers are indeed more productive when they work many hours, and ordinary people are trying to resemble these super-workers. If this is the case, then ems will work many hours because they will mostly be selected from among those few super-workers.

Note:PERCHÈ SI LAVORA TANTO?

The selection for ems who work hard and well is likely to select for a work-orientation, rather than a leisure-orientation, in em cultures. During the industrial era, an orientation to leisure has become more common, and today is more common among women, the young, and the unmarried. People with a high school education are more leisure-oriented, compared with both those with more and less education.

Note:ORIENTATI AL LAVORO O AL TEMPO LIBERO?

Leisure-oriented people are less satisfied with their job, and they feel fewer intrinsic rewards from work and more from leisure.

Note:INCENTIVI INTRINSECI

This all weakly suggests that ems not only work more hours, they also tend to be male, married, care less about work relations, feel more obliged to contribute to society, and gain more intrinsic reward from work and less from leisure.

Note:RITRATTINO DEL ROBOT LAVORATORE

During the industrial era, we have spent much of our increasing wealth on more pleasant working conditions, as well as on more consumption variety and on working fewer hours. Poorer and more competitive ems are likely to reverse these trends, and accept more workplace drudgery.

Note:CONDIZIONI DI LAVORO

Some ems are likely to listen to music on the job, as that increases productivity in some kinds of jobs (Fox and Embrey 1972). Such music will typically be mild, wordless, and not otherwise distracting (Kiger 1989).

Note:MUSICA SUL LAVORO

Spurs

heavy use of “spurs,” who are em copies who are newly copied at the beginning of their workday, and then retire or are erased at the conclusion of their workday.

Note:CONTROFIGURE CON UN GIORNO DI VITA

In addition to saving on the cost of needing to rest from work, spurs also save on mental aging. As discussed in Chapter 4, Complexity section, em minds become less flexible and more fragile with subjective experience.

Note:GIOVANILISMO

U.S. workers recently reported spending an average of 7% of their time at work “loafing,” such as via eating, socializing, or web surfing. This percentage falls when workers more fear losing their job (Burda et al. 2016). More competitive em workers loaf less.

Note:BIGHELLONARE

Breaks help productivity more when they are short and frequent, when they happen in the morning relative to afternoon, and when the activities during breaks are preferred, social, work-related, and outside the office (Hunter and Wu 2015).

Note:BREAK

There is also evidence suggesting productivity gains from napping for 10 to 30 minutes one or a few times a day (Dhand and Sohal 2006).

Note:PISOLINI CONSIGLIATI

em spurs will tend to be made from copies who just finished a nap or break, and that spurs will have an extra productivity bonus for tasks that take less than about an hour or so to complete.

Note:CHI COPIARE PER LAVORETTI BREVI

in our world the peak is near 10 in the morning in construction, during the morning for sports with complex strategies, and in the afternoon for handwriting and for sports requiring great physical efforts (Alvanchi et al. 2012; Hölzle et al. 2014; Drust et al. 2005).

Note:PICCHI

Each em uses spurs created from the times of day which tend to give that em its highest productivity for the assigned task.

Note:COPIARE QUANDO SEI AL PICCO

Today only a modest degree of multitasking is productive. It seems that doing only one or two projects at a time is best (Aral et al. 2007

Note:MULTITASKING

To avoid many social complications, spurs are likely to interact less often socially with non-spur friends and lovers. Spur social interactions instead focus on other spurs, such as spur co-workers.

Note:LA VITA SOCIALE DI UNO SPUR

The use of spurs will encourage ems to coordinate and plan activities in their head before splitting into spur copies, to summarize their work well just before ending or retiring as a spur, and to organize tasks into units that can be completed in a subjective work day, with minimal need to recall details later.

Note:IL LAVORATORE E LA SUA STRATEGIA

Spur Uses

Spurs who end instead of retiring can help ems to deniably do things of questionable legal or moral status, if the main evidence of their actions was erased when their minds were erased. For example, a spur might try to alter some evidence of previous poor performance.

Note:LO SPUR USATO COME KILLER

Spurs that end could ensure privacy in short-term professional consulting. For example, a relationship counselor could make an isolated spur who hears about your relationship problems, offers advice to you in private, and then ends.

Note:SEGRETI PROFESSIONALI

Spurs make it easier to convince people of things without revealing one’s sources, by proving that “you would agree with my claim if you knew what I know.”

Note:AFFIDABILITÀ E CONFIDENZE. CHI È GIÀ NELLA TOMBA È IL MIGLIOR FIDUCIARIO

For example, spur safes could let a buyer choose among several sellers based on very open disclosures of buyer and seller details and secrets inside a safe. Potential mates might become more intimate in a safe to see how well they are matched… For example, government authorities could not simply pretend to have good secret reasons for their policies; others could ask to see those reasons inside safes.

Note:ESEMPI DI SPUR FIDUCIARI

Inside a safe, an advisor explains the non-idealistic reasons why some choice is best. Outside the safe, the em just follows the advice from the safe, and does not reflect much on why that advice differs from what their idealistic beliefs might suggest.

Note:CAMERA CARITATIS: SAFE

Spurs could also be used to test for biases. Today, psychologists show common biases by randomly splitting experimental subjects into subgroups that are given different prompts… em spurs could directly demonstrate such biases in individuals, and not just in large groups. An individual could be split into different copies that are given different prompts, and then their answers could be directly compared. Ems wanting to convince an audience of their impartiality might even empower independent judges or opponents to create such “split-tests.”

Note:RINTRACCIARE I BIAS

Social Power

Compared with us, ems are individually better at getting and keeping power. Humans today often compete for power, prestige, and material resources. But most of us are reluctant to compete fiercely and strategically, using all available means. It makes sense that we inherited such attitudes, because the forager world greatly punished such aggression… our habits of reluctant competition are often less adaptive in today’s rather different world, and are likely to also be less adaptive in the em world….

Note:EM PIÙ COMPETITIVI DEGLI UOMINI

In the farming and industrial eras selection effects have ensured that such aggressive competitors have been over-represented in positions of power (Pfeffer 2010).

Note:L'AGGRESSIVITÀ OGGI PAGA PIÙ DI IERI

They less often handicap themselves, such as by refusing to take a test that they might fail. That is, they don’t shy away from hard tests. They instead have stronger desires to improve themselves, and stronger beliefs that this is possible.

Note:L' EMULATORE CI PROVA SEMPRE. VUOLE MIGLIORARSI

Power-gaining ems are also more willing and able to sell themselves. They push more to make themselves visible to superiors, they are more attentive to what their bosses want, and they develop stronger relations with those bosses.

Note:LECCHINI

They are more able to project self-assurance, to read others and empathize with their point of view, and to tolerate conflict. They tend more to be suspicious of potential work rivals. Such ems are more strategic and careful in choosing the details of their career paths. They more often ask for things they want, even if rejection seems likely.

Note:AUTOCONTROLLO TOLLERANZA E IPOCRISIA

Power-gaining ems are better actors, in order to convince others of their power. They are better able to pretend and play a role. They tend to act like they are succeeding, even when they are not. They tend to express anger instead of sadness or remorse. They tend to stand up straight rather than slouching, and thrust their chest and pelvis forward rather than curling in on themselves. They more often move forward and toward others, and stand closer to others, instead of turning their back or retreating. They use tall bodies and deep voices, although of course all virtual ems could also easily do this if they wish. The hand gestures of such ems are short and forceful, not long and circular. They directly look others in the eye, instead of looking down or away.

Note:MODO DI COMPORTARSI E ATTEGGIAMENTI

Their language is evocative, specific, and often filled with forceful words and visual imagery. They often use emotional language terms, refer to us-them concepts and other contrasting concept pairs, pause for emphasis, and explicitly enumerate how many points they will make. Today, the powerful are different from the rest of us, and we should expect that ems will be different from us in those same ways.

LINGUAGGIO

10 NEUROSCIENZE ROBOT MARZIANI DARWIN The Evolution of the Soul by Richard Swinburne

10 NEUROSCIENZE ANIMALI ROBOT MARZIANI E DARWIN The Evolution of the Soul by Richard Swinburne darwinnonbasta unascienzadellanima? correlazionieleggi animaanimale ilmisterodellamutazione animasenzavantaggievolutivi lariduzioneimpossibile lascienzaimpossibile

10.Read more at location 2336

Note: 10@@@@@@@@@@@@ Edit

In this chapter I come to the questions of when the soul begins to exist in the individual humanRead more at location 2337

Note: QUANDO NASCE? Edit

the answers to these questions depend in part on the answers to detailed questions of physiology which I shall not attempt to provide, I hope to show what kind of physiological information is relevantRead more at location 2339

Note: NEUROFISIOLOGIA Edit

what is it for a man to have a soul when he is not having any conscious episodes (e.g. during some periods of deep sleep).Read more at location 2340

Note: ANIMA SENZA COSCIENZA Edit

The Existence of Consciousness Read more at location 2343

Note: TITOLO Edit

The evidence available to others that some man is currently conscious will, we saw in earlier chapters, be his testimony and certain patterns of bodily behaviour which manifest his conscious life (e.g. screaming when in pain).Read more at location 2348

Note: SOLIPSISMO Edit

This direct evidence of consciousness is found to be correlated with physiological phenomena.Read more at location 2353

Note: NEUROFISIOLOGIA Edit

the electrical rhythm of a man's brain, his EEG, is found to have a certain pattern.Read more at location 2353

Add a note

evidence of the connection of EEG rhythm with consciousness, means that (since a man's own apparent memory of whether he was at some time conscious or not can err, like all memory) it can be used to correct apparent memory-e.g. if a man woken up from what by EEG rhythm evidence is deep dreamless sleep claims that he was woken from a long dream, the EEG evidence acts at least to cast doubt on his claimRead more at location 2356

Note: LA CORREZIONE Edit

The same goes for the evidence of rapid eye movements during sleep (REMs) showing that a man is dreaming. Read more at location 2361

Add a note

there are periods of deep sleep in which a man is not conscious at all.Read more at location 2362

Note: SONNO PROFONDO Edit

The absence of consciousness for those periods is clearly dependent on the state of the brain, and not vice versa. A man can be made unconscious-by drugs, being knocked out, etc.-or woken up. The functioning of the soul depends on the correct functioning of the brain.Read more at location 2364

Note: NESSO Edit

there is no conscious life before some point between conception and birth. No one can recall conscious episodes immediately after conception, there are no bodily movements evidential of sensations, thoughts, or purposings, and there is no brain to evince the electrical patterns characteristic of consciousness.Read more at location 2366

Note: NASCITA Edit

The evidence suggests that consciousness originates when the foetus has a brain with the kind of electrical rhythms characteristicRead more at location 2368

Note: IL CERVELLO DEL FETO Edit

The Existence of the Soul Read more at location 2369

Note: TITOLO Edit

What I have argued so far is that without a functioning brain, the soul will not function (i.e. have conscious episodes)-not that it will not exist.Read more at location 2369

Note: FUNZIONARE ED ESISTERE Edit

The distinction between existence and functioning is clear enough in the case of a material substance, which has some sort of life (e.g. a plant) or some sort of working (e.g. a machine). The substance continues to exist so long as the matter of which it is made continues to existRead more at location 2371

Note: ESISTE LA MATERIA ESISTE LA COSA Edit

But it functions only so long as normal life-processes or machine-use continue.Read more at location 2373

Add a note

The clock exists, when it no longer tells the time, so long as the parts remain joined in roughly the normal way;Read more at location 2373

Note: OROLOGIO Edit

a dead tree is still a tree,Read more at location 2374

Add a note

The soul functions while it is the subject of conscious episodes-while it has sensations or thoughts or purposes. But is it still there when the man is asleep, having no conscious episodes?Read more at location 2375

Note: IL CASO DELL ANIMA Edit

In saying that some such person still exists, we mean, I suggest, that the sleeping body will again by normal processes give rise to a conscious life,Read more at location 2378

Note: IL PROCESSO NORMALE DI CHI DORME: SVEGLIARSI. ASSENZA DI INTERFERENZE Edit

although persons only exist while they are conscious, the bodies which they previously owned continue to exist during the periods of unconsciousnessRead more at location 2380

Add a note

that would be a very unnatural way to talk, largely because it has the consequence that certain substances (persons) are continually popping in and out of existence.Read more at location 2381

Note: DENTRO E FUORI DALL ESISTENZA Edit

it seems a less cumbersome way to describe the cited fact to say that persons exist while not conscious,Read more at location 2383

Note: PIÙ SEMPLICE Edit

This will have the consequence that persons normally have only one beginning of existence during their life on Earth. Read more at location 2384

Add a note

With this usage, a soul exists while its owner exists; and a soul will normally have only one beginning of existence during a man's life on Earth.Read more at location 2390

Add a note

But the boundaries of this usage are not as clear as they look. It all depends on what we understand by 'normal' bodily processesRead more at location 2391

Note: I CONFINI DELL ESISTENZA Edit

If a drowned body of a person can be revived by artificial respiration, that person certainly exists before the respiration is given.Read more at location 2392

Note: RESPIRAZIONE ARTIFICIALE Edit

But what about the man in a coma for reviving whom there are no techniques available to doctors at that place and time, though there will be such techniques usable a few years later?Read more at location 2393

Note: COMA IRREVERSIBILE Edit

If he recovers, have 'normal processes' made his soul function again'?Read more at location 2395

Note: L ANIMA DEI COMATOSI Edit

we must, I think, develop the account which I have given so far by giving fairly arbitrary stipulative definitions of 'normal' bodily processes and 'available' techniques.Read more at location 2399

Note: NORMALE PROCESSO CORPOREO Edit

If our talk of persons existing is not to depart too wildly from ordinary usage, we must deny that it is sufficient for the existence of a man merely that it is logically possible that he be brought to life again; for in that case all dead men would continue to exist (as a mere logical consequence of once having existed).Read more at location 2400

Note: LA POSSIBILITÀ LOGICA Edit

I suggest that we understand in this context by a bodily process being 'normal', that it will yield its outcome with a high degree of predictability given normal nutrition, respiration, etc.,Read more at location 2403

Note: NORMALE: ALTAMENTE PROBABILE Edit

and by a technique being 'available', that it is available to doctors during that period of history within a region of the size of the average county.Read more at location 2404

Note: TECNICA DISPONIBILE Edit

My preferred definition does allow that it sometimes happens that a person (and so his soul) ceases to exist and then by an unexpected accident comes to exist again.Read more at location 2408

Note: REVENANTS Edit

So, given that the soul functions first about twenty weeks after conception, when does it come into existence? There exist normal bodily processes by which the fertilized egg develops into a foetus with a brain after twenty weeks which gives rise to a functioning soul. If the soul exists just because normal bodily processes will bring it one day to function, it surely therefore exists, once the egg is fertilized, at conception.'Read more at location 2411

Note: EMBRIONE DI 20 SETTIMANE Edit

Once again it seems an arbitrary matter when we say that the soul begins to exist, requiring a further stipulation as to how 'normal bodily processes' are to he understood.Read more at location 2415

Add a note

Animal Souls Read more at location 2418

Note: TITOLO. ANIMALI Edit

the grounds for attributing a mental life of sensation, thought, purpose, desire, and belief to other men are provided by the pattern of their public behaviour, including above all what they say.Read more at location 2418

Note: ANIMA E COMPORTAMENTO PUBBLICO Edit

There are, as we noted there, similar grounds for attributing a mental life characterized by these elements to the higher animals, especially mammals.Read more at location 2419

Add a note

animals sometimes show the facial signs which humans show when struck by thought;Read more at location 2429

Add a note

But of course the most obvious difference between the higher animals and ourselves is that they do not have a structured language;Read more at location 2432

Note: IL LINGUAGGIO Edit

this means that any conclusions we reach about their mental lives must he much more tentative than any conclusions we may reach about the mental lives of other men. Read more at location 2435

Note: TENTATIVE Edit

An organism can have sensations without having mental events of other kinds; and my suspicion is that the conscious life of the first conscious animals was purely sensory,Read more at location 2439

Note: SENSAZIONI. ANIMA SENSITIVA Edit

Since, as I shall argue, creatures without language cannot have moral concepts, desire alone must move such creatures to action.Read more at location 2443

Note: LINGUAGGIO ED ETICA Edit

beliefs must have been present in all purposing animals. Sooner or later animals must have formulated their beliefs to themselves in thought.Read more at location 2445

Note: CREDENZA Edit

Now the claim which I made in Chapter 8 about the need to describe humans as composed of body and soul applies to conscious animals as well.Read more at location 2451

Note: DUALISMO VERSO GLI ANIMALI Edit

If you divide my cat's brain and transplant the two halves into empty cat skulls and the transplants take, there is a truth about which subsequent cat is my cat which is not necessarily revealed by knowledge of what has happened to the parts of my cat's body. Read more at location 2453

Note: TRAPIANTI AI GATTI Edit

Talk about animal souls as well as human souls was normal in Greek philosophy and Christian medieval thought.Read more at location 2455

Note: GRECIA E MEDIOEVO Edit

The idea of a very sharp division between animals who had no souls, and men who had souls, arrived in the seventeenth century with Descartes and his strange view that animals were unconscious automata.Read more at location 2456

Note: CARTESIO E L ANIMALE ROBOT Edit

The difference between animals and men, as the medievals well recognised, was not that men had a mental life and so souls, and animals did not; but that man had a special kind of mental life (mental capacities which went beyond those of animals) and so a special kind of soul. The medievals called this soul the rational or intellectual soul, as opposed to the animal or sensitive soul.' Read more at location 2457

Note: ANIMA RAZIONALE E SENSITIVA Edit

Scientific Explanation of Animal Evolution Read more at location 2459

Note: TITOLO: EVOLUZIONE DELL ANIMA Edit

How far can science explain the evolution of these forms of consciousness'? Read more at location 2462

Note: SCIENZA E COSCIENZA Edit

Most writers who discuss the relation of mind and body and consider the possibility of scientific explanation in this field normally make an assumption of one-many simultaneous mind-brain correlation.Read more at location 2462

Note: LA CORRELAZIONE MENTE CERVELLO Edit

the assumption of one-many correlation is an assumption for which no one has ever produced any detailed evidence.Read more at location 2468

Note: EVIDENZA Edit

The assumption of one-many mind-brain correlation would follow from the assumptions that every event has a cause, and that all mental events are caused exclusively and instantaneously by brain-events.Read more at location 2468

Note: ASSUNTO DELLA CAUSA MATERIALE Edit

I shall make the assumption of one-many mind-brain correlation for humans, animals, and any other conscious beings there may be; and show that even with it, central theses of mine about the structure and causal efficacy, and yet ultimate inexplicability, of the soul still follow.Read more at location 2470

Note: LA COSCIENZA RESTA CMQ INSPIEGATA DALLA SCIENZA Edit

Why did no organisms develop with four wheels made of skin and bone, or organisms which eat coal, or organisms with built-in catapults to fire stones?Read more at location 2487

Note: UNA CRITICA ALL EVOLUZIONISMO Edit

explanation of why we have the animals we do lies not in natural selection but in the chemical properties of genetic material which make it more prone to throw up certain variants than others. The major task of explaining why organisms have the physical characteristics they do lies no longer with the theorist of natural selection but with the biochemist. Read more at location 2492

Note: CASO O BIOCHIMICA? IL MISTERO DELLA MUTAZIONE Edit

what physics and chemistry could not possibly explain is why the brain-events to which the impinging light gives rise, in turn give rise to sensations of blueness (as opposed to redness), a high noise rather than a low noise, this sort of smell rather than that sort of smell-why sodium chloride tastes salty, and roses look pink. And the reason why physics and chemistry could not explain these things is that pink looks, high noises, and salty tastes are not the sort of thing physics and chemistry deal in.Read more at location 2498

Note: COSA NN SPIEGHERÀ MAI LO SCIENTISMO Edit

mental properties are different properties from physical properties; and even if there is one-many correlation between mental events and brain-events, physics and chemistry cannot explain why there are these correlations rather than those correlations,Read more at location 2501

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But could not physics and chemistry be enlarged so as to become a super-science dealing with both physical and mental properties,Read more at location 2503

Note: UNA NUOVA FISICA? Edit

I do not think so, for the following reason.Read more at location 2504

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You explain why the planet today is in this position by stating where it and other heavenly bodies were last month (the initial conditions) and how it follows from Newton's laws of motionRead more at location 2505

Note: LA SPIEGA SCIENTIFICA Edit

To provide a scientific explanation you need laws of nature.Read more at location 2507

Note: LEGGE DI NATURA Edit

we need to show not merely that the generalization holds universally, but that it fits neatly into a scientific theory which is a simple theory with few simple purported laws,Read more at location 2514

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The theory with four such simple laws was able to predict with great accuracy the behaviour of bodies of very different kinds in very different circumstances-theRead more at location 2521

Note: GRAVITÀ Edit

Now a scientist, I have assumed, could compile a very, very long list of the correlations between brain-events and sensations,Read more at location 2525

Note: IL CATALOGO DELLE CORRELAZIONI Edit

But to explain those correlations we need by our principles to establish a much smaller set of purported laws, from which it follows that this kind of brain-event has to be correlated with a red sensation, that one with a blue sensation;Read more at location 2530

Note: CATALOGO E NN PRINCIPI Edit

The purported laws would need to fit together into a theory from which we could derive new correlations (e.g. predict some totally new sensation to which some hitherto unexemplified brain-state would give rise).Read more at location 2532

Note: PREDIZIONE DI NUOVE CORRELAZIONI? Edit

Because you have no explanation of why all ravens are black, you may reasonably suspect that tomorrow someone will find a white raven.Read more at location 2536

Note: SPIEGARE I CORVI NERI Edit

The list of correlations is like a list of sentences of a foreign language which under certain circumstances translate sentencesRead more at location 2537

Note: IMPARARE UNA LINGUA. LISTA E REGOLE Edit

In the absence of a grammar and dictionary you do not know when those translations will cease to be accurateRead more at location 2538

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But why should not the scientist devise a theory showing the kinds of correlation discussed to be natural ones'?Read more at location 2540

Note: AVREMO MAI UNA GRAMMATICA? Edit

Although it is theoretically possible that a scientific theory of this kind should be created, still the creation of such a theory does not look a very likely prospect.Read more at location 2541

Note: POSSIBILE MA IMPROBABILE. FINE DEL LIBERO ARBITRIO Edit

Brain-events are such different things qualitatively from pains, smells, and tastesRead more at location 2542

Note: DIFFERENZA CHE APPARE QUALITATIVA Edit

There is a crucial difference between the two cases. All other integrations into a super-science, of sciences dealing with entities and properties apparently qualitatively very distinct, were achieved by saying that really some of those entities and properties were not as they appeared to be; by making a distinction between the underlying (not immediately observable) entities and properties and the phenomenal properties to which they gave rise.Read more at location 2553

Note: DIFFERENZE CON LE GRANDI INTEGRAZIONI DEL PASSATO. Edit

All `reduction' of one science to another dealing with apparently very disparate properties has been achieved by this device of denying that the apparent properties (i.e. the `secondary qualities' of colour, heat, sound, taste, etc.) with which one science dealt belonged to the physical world at all.Read more at location 2559

Note: RIDUZIONE DEL CALDO DEL SUONO... A FENOMENI MOLECOLARI. PER LA COSCIENZA SI NEGHEREBBE IL LIBERO ARBITRIO Edit

But then, when you come to face the problem of the sensations themselves, you cannot do this. If you are to explain the sensations themselves, you cannot distinguish between them and their underlying causes and only explain the latter.Read more at location 2561

Note: IL PROBLEMA: SE DEVI SPIEGARE LE SENSAZIONI NN PUOI NEGARE CHE SIANO SENSAZIONI X RIDURLE A MOLECOLE Edit

can natural selection explain why animals with the capacity to have sensations survived? What evolutionary advantage does the capacity to have sensations give to a creature?Read more at location 2566

Note: PERCHÈ AVERE SENSAZIONI DOVREBBE ESSERE UN VANTAGGIO EVOLUTIVO? NON BASTA UN AUTOMA? Edit

If epiphenomenalism were true, there would be no evolutionary advantage in having sensations.Read more at location 2567

Note: DARWIN NN SPIEGA GLI EPIFENOMENI Edit

having of sensations would never make any difference to the animal's behaviour.Read more at location 2568

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this system of ours in which sensations are causally intermediate between stimulus and response will clearly have no evolutionary advantage over a mechanism which produces the same behavioural modifications without going through sensations to produce them.Read more at location 2570

Note: SENSAZIONE: UN INTERMEDIARIO INUTILE. RAGIONE AGLI ELIMINATIVISTI Edit

What advantage is there in the mental awareness as opposed to the unconscious disposition'?Read more at location 2585

Note: LA COSCIENZA NN DÀ VANTAGGI EVOLUTIVI QUINDI DARWIN NN SPIEGA LA SUA ESISTENZA Edit

So we have noted one crucial all-important question which is utterly beyond the powers of Darwinism or apparently science itself to answer-why do certain brain-events give rise to certain mental events-and one question on which there are possibilities for a Darwinian answer.Read more at location 2589

Note: OLTRE DARWIN Edit

Why is the brain connected via the optic nerve to the eye in such a way that the brain-event which gives rise to the belief that there is a table present is normally caused to occur when and only when there is a table present? The answer is evident-animals with beliefs are more likely to survive if their beliefs are largely true.Read more at location 2593

Note: IL VANTAGGIO EVOLUTIVO DELLA VERITÀ Edit

Many animals have a built-in mechanism for correcting in the light of experience any tendency to acquire false beliefsRead more at location 2598

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So then, in summary, the evolution of the mental life of animalsRead more at location 2603

Note: SOMMARIO Edit

is a matter of (1) there existing certain physical/mental connectionsRead more at location 2604

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(2) animals with brains, whose states are connected to mental states, having survival value; (3) evolution selecting animals whose brains are `wired in' to their bodies in certain ways.Read more at location 2604

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Darwinian mechanisms can explain quite a lot of (3), and possibly some of (2); but neither Darwinism nor any other science has much prospect of explaining (1).Read more at location 2605

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The gradual evolution of the animal soul is a mystery, likely ever to lie beyond the capacity of science to explain.Read more at location 2609

Note: CONCLUSIONE Edit

We have good reason to suppose that they do have souls which operate under certain physical conditions,Read more at location 2615

Note: ALTERNATIVA Edit

There may be some natural law concerning when and how soul and body interact, but my argument suggests that there is not (because our present evidence would count against any suggested law) and in consequence scientists are unlikely to find one.Read more at location 2616

Note: ASSENZA DI LEGGI. LIBERTÀ DELL UOMO Edit

some brain keeps some soul functioning; but, lacking a theory of how this happens, we do not know how much of that brain is needed for that soulRead more at location 2623

Note: QUANTO CERVELLO CI SERVE? Edit

Martians, Robots, and Synthesized Animals Read more at location 2626

Note: TITOLO. MARZIANI E ROBOT Edit

what of organisms who might be found on other planets, made of very different kinds of molecule from animals on this planet (let us call them `Martians'); and what of organisms which are brought into being, not by normal sexual processes, but are put together in a laboratory on this Earth, made either of similar molecules and similar construction to animals (let us call them `synthesized animals') or of very different molecules and construction (let us call them `robots')?Read more at location 2627

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The difference of construction of robots and Martians from ourselves, means that we no longer have the crucial grounds for attributing consciousnessRead more at location 2630

Note: DIFFIDENZA Edit

If they have a mental life like ours, we must obviously treat them differently from the way in which we treat machines.Read more at location 2639

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synthesized animals, having considerable similarity of brain to ourselves, are justifiably believed to have souls. There is no reason to suppose that souls will come into existence only through the normal sexual processes.Read more at location 2643

Note: EMULATORI