Is philosophy undergoing a radical transformation? In recent times, this question has been very popular, especially after the radical development of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Is this radical development and the application of such knowledge in machine learning and artificial intelligence triggering a radical transformation of traditional philosophy?
What is philosophy?
The discipline that deals with questions of how one should live (ethics); what kinds of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic)?Wikipedia
Some definitions:
Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods (American Heritage Dictionary).
The study of the ultimate nature of existence, reality, knowledge, and goodness, as discoverable by human reasoning (Penguin English Dictionary).
The rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics (WordNet).
The search for knowledge and truth, especially about the nature of man and his behavior and beliefs (Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary).
The rational and critical inquiry of basic principles (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia).
The study of the most general and abstract features of the world, the bases of human knowledge, and the evaluation of human behavior (the philosophy pages).
If we look at the definitions we can find that the most underlying principle of philosophy is questioning. The question of what is life? How should one live? What kinds of things exist and what are their natures? What are the correct principles of reasoning? What are the principles of reality, knowledge or values?
Finding the answers or solutions to questions or problems through the application of the principles of reasoning is the goal of philosophy. In short, search for knowledge and truth. The search does not necessarily result in finding the truth. However, the process used to find the truth is more important. History tells us that the wisdom of humans (the body of knowledge and experience that develops within a specific society or period) changed and has been continually changing. Human beings are in search of wisdom (the ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight)
Blind beliefs are the biggest obstacles that stop our thought process. Philosophers question these blind beliefs or rather question every belief. They are skeptical about everything. In fact, it is one of the philosophical methods (methodical doubt) they use to find the truth. Philosophizing begins with a simple doubt about accepted beliefs. They apply methodical doubt and insight to test the functional, dysfunctional, or destructive nature of an accepted and prevailing belief in a society. Wait a minute! We have a problem that needs to be addressed first. When we say ‘knowledge’, it does not necessarily lead us to the truth of the conclusion they reach. Existing knowledge is not complete. Therefore, there is the possibility of a fallacy of conclusion. A conclusion can be valid but it need not be true. With the introduction of an additional premise or the removal of an existing premise, the nature of the conclusion will undergo a change.
fallacies
The other common obstacles to logical and critical thinking are a) confirmation bias, b) framing effects, c) heuristics, and d) common fallacies, such as the fallacies of relevance, the fallacy of the red herring, the fallacy the straw man, the ad hominem fallacy, the appeal (to authority) fallacy, the composition fallacy, the division fallacy, the equivocation, the appeal to popularity, the appeal to tradition, the appeal to ignorance, the appeal to emotion, the begging of the question, the false dilemma, the decision point fallacy, the slippery slope fallacy, hasty generalizations, faulty analogies, and the fallacy of the fallacy. And we can add the two formal fallacies a) affirm the consequent, b) deny the antecedent.
Humans make mistakes. It is often said that it is human nature to err. Having known the myriad fallacies of logical arguments, we have been developing certain methods or models to avoid such errors. Philosophical methods are our set of tools that, when used, reduce our mistakes.
In addition to these obstacles, we have other human limitations, such as the limitation of short-term and long-term memory capacity and the limitation of our sensory capacity. All these limitations are obstacles to our philosophizing. Therefore, we make mistakes knowingly and unknowingly. However, we have never stopped striving to become the best species in the world.
On the other hand, machines, although not the perfect species, can avoid certain human limitations when performing philosophizing. Given two logical support propositions, they can deduce a perfect conclusion. However, if they are given randomly selected propositions, will they be able to choose the correct propositions that logically support the conclusion? It depends on the algorithm that we feed into the machine. But of course, we are not perfect. We have not yet fully understood how the human brain works. The main purpose of using a philosophizing machine is to avoid mistakes. The machine could mimic human error, a humiliating human characteristic that we wanted so badly to avoid.
One approach is to let the machine learn to think and make decisions for itself. In the process, the machine can develop its own brain that can surpass the ability and capacity of the human brain. That could be a possibility. This approach is already in testing.
Human wisdom is the ability to think and act using knowledge, collective experience, understanding, common sense and insight. Will the machine be able to catch up and surpass human wisdom?
The machine can feed on the knowledge accumulated by humans. However, the challenge is how the machine will collect the correct knowledge for a correct claim. The machine has no experience of human life. That is actually a blessing in disguise. If we feed all of our experiences into the machine, it will be a mere cocktail of beliefs and ideas that are different and mostly diagonally opposite to each other. It’s best to feed as little information as possible and leave the rest to the machine for first-hand experience with humans. That means the machine will live with humans and interact with humans so that they develop knowledge of human behavior and hopefully the other human characteristics like emotional understanding, common sense and so on.
Philosophical methods that include the rules of reasoning to reach correct conclusions are most likely to be of great use to the machine. You can make decisions minus the logical fallacies we commit knowingly and unknowingly. Such a machine could really be immensely useful to humans, especially as a guide or guard who can work without succumbing to emotion and prejudice.
Aside from philosophical methods, the machine can also be fueled with sensory superpowers without which human intelligence is limited. Humans may take longer to develop such additional built-in sensory powers. Such a machine would be a marvelous work of art.
Therefore, philosophical methods will transform the nature of machines rather than machines bringing about a radical transformation of philosophizing. Machines would help humans draw correct conclusions. Machines would pick up the correct propositions from the huge data and provide us with a valid conclusion, which is a tedious and time-consuming task for humans. Machines can work continuously without getting bored unless they develop their own human-like emotions. Hope, machines understand human emotions and at the same time they don’t have emotions.