August/September 2019 lPhilosophy Now 41The Sound of No Hands Clapping
DEAR EDITOR: Karen Parham’s article
‘Meditating with Descartes’, Issue 132
mentions the famous koan “What is the
sound of one hand clapping?” My
answer is, “The cacophony of silence”. I
feel that I am now fit to be fast-tracked
to a Zen master-hood if I am the first to
make this reply; if not, my apologies for
unconscious plagiarism. In either case I
shall be enlightened. Perhaps I gained
my inspiration from P.G. Wodehouse,
of his golfer: “The least thing upset him
on the links. He missed his short putts
because of the uproar of the butterflies
on the adjoining meadows.”
One of my favourite koansis of the
Master Tsing Hwa. He fell into a ravine
when a wooden bridge collapsed, and he
was injured. On recovery he would not
walk across any wooden structure, even
the floor of the temple. Asked when he
would use a wooden bridge again, he said
“When it spans a solid void.” Then he
asked his disciple Boh Da what can be
more real than a fictional koan written by
a sceptic? Boh Da was enlightened, and
left the monastery to become financial
advisor to the Zhou Dynasty’s Yu Wang
during the last decade of that unfortunate
potentate’s reign.
Are these Western koans?: ‘Can real-
ity be doubted unless it is real?’; or
‘Doubt is doubted; be unsure of the sure
and unsure of the unsure’; or again,
‘Failure to succeed is failure, but is suc-
ceeding to fail success?’ Charles Lamb
said that “A pun is a pistol fired off in
the ear, not a feather to tickle the intel-
lect.” Koansdo both, since they are
unanswerable riddles wrapped up in
paradox, seductively devoid of meaning
intellectually and emotionally. But then,
in Zen, pointlessness is the point. Then
again, I could make a point of not mak-
ing a point of not being a follower of
Zen – or not, as the case may be.
Is ‘I think therefore I am’ a koan? I
think not. To be able to think is an
attribute of human existence and so this
well-worn phrase is a tautological state-
ment, not paradoxical wordplay. But
Descartes’ discussions of mind/ soul are
unsatisfactory. It seems to me he pre-
judged the outcome of his theses.
Leaving out these demands of his
faith, I read Descartes as a materialist but
perhaps not a good physiologist, even by
the standards of his time.
DRDAVID MARJOT , SURREYMinding the Machines
DEAR EDITOR: In his article in Issue 132,
Paul Conrad Samuelsson thinks it’s
likely that machines will gain conscious-
ness, and that this is the case regardless
of whether consciousness is physical or
not. I disagree on both points. A
machine such as a computer or android
has been designed so that its physical
components will cause it to behave as it
does, the program itself forming part of
this physical cause. Therefore, it seems
irrefutable to conclude that what causes a
machine’s behaviour is physical. This is
not to rule out the possibility of machine
consciousness, but there seems no justifi-
cation for actually believing there might
be such a thing. We would not normally
think there’s any consciousness involved
in a simple electrical circuit which is con-
nected to a light bulb, and it should be
remembered that a computer is internallythe equivalent of lots of those circuits,
each performing a simple activity.
The situation is quite different when it
comes to a being known to have con-
sciousness. I know I have a consciousness.
I also know that this consciousness does
not have the same properties as anything
physical. Therefore, I think that unlike
the case of a machine, there’s no possibil-
ity that I am a purely physical system.
I expect that part of the reason why
many people believe in machine con-
sciousness is that they’re materialists –
they believe that consciousness consists
of physical things such as electrical
activity of the brain or responses to
stimuli. Some machines receive stimuli,
causing electrical activity in their cir-
cuitry, this then causing physical
responses which resemble intelligent
behaviour. So, some people believe that
in terms of their definition of ‘con-
sciousness’, such machines have con-
sciousness. However, on the contrary,
where there are only physical processes,
there is no consciousness. In summary, I
am not persuaded that machines will
have consciousness.
PETER SPURRIER , H ALSTEAD , E SSEXDEAR EDITOR: Avoiding glossy descrip-
tions of the robot cars, robot dogs, and
robot welders which have appeared in
recent years, only one brand is named in
Richard Baron’s review in Issue 132 of
Living with Robots: Paro, a toy seal which
responds to its name. I’d have liked to
learn a little about Paro’s cost and relia-
bility, and, like the robot in Lost in Space,
any ability it might have to flail mechan-
ical arms while warning owners of
‘DANGER! EXTREME DANGER!’
All the ideas in Living with Robots stem
from a core theory, that we should no
longer think of consciousness only in
terms of an internal mind which manu-
factures thoughts and emotions and then
launches the consequences on an exter-
nal world, but in terms of the relation-
ships that agents have with the world.When inspiration strikes, don’t bottle it up!
Write to me at: Philosophy Now
43a Jerningham Road• London• SE14 5NQ, U.K.
or email [email protected]
Keep them short and keep them coming!Letters
Remembering Mary Midgley:
A Centenary Celebration
DEAR READERS: Many of you will
remember Mary Midgley, either
from her wonderful philosophy
books or from her numerous articles
in Philosophy Now. In September she
would have been a hundred years
old. Her sons are organising a
Centenary Celebration, including
philosophy talks. It will be held in
London’s Conway Hall on 7 Sept
2019, 12:00-4:00pm.
For further information and to reserve
a place, please email David Midgley
on [email protected]