1st METU Undergraduate Students Philosophy Congress – Day 1 Observation
I've been waiting for this philosophy congress for a while, and today I went to METU with great curiosity to watch it.
Normally, some of my friends (like Ege) thought my presence at the philosophy congress was unusual and were surprised. Because they knew my attitude towards philosophy, but since I aim to learn all kinds of information, there's nothing unusual about it.
When I arrived, someone in his 70s was giving a speech. I believe it was Prof. Dr. Ahmet İnam (former Head of the Department of Philosophy at METU). He talked about the difference between his time and the current one, saying that he would never have thought, let alone talked about, that such congresses would be held and that there would be participation.
The first presentation was made by a student at the Philosophy Department of Ege University. Enes Bilgin, talked about the topic titled “The Problem of Other Minds and Other Selves.”
He begins with Descartes, explaining that analytic philosophy of mind examines the mind from a physicalist perspective, reducing it to the body and brain. He also argues that the physicalist perspective and its methods can only observe the mind from a third perspective, and cannot be observed from a first perspective, thus never reaching a conclusion. Similarly, he argues that even if this perspective succeeds, it's unclear whether the problem of different minds and selves will be resolved. His explanation was amateurish, but I believe he will improve it in the future.
In the second presentation, students studying in the Department of Philosophy at METU Baran Kaplan, presented the topic titled “On the Hard Problem of Consciousness: Multiple Frameworks Model vs. Homunculus”.
First, he discussed the mind's levels of awareness (coma, sleep, wakefulness) and explored the mind-body relationship. He discussed Substance Dualism and Attribute Dualism, and various definitions of consciousness (philosophical zombie, etc.). According to Daniel Dennett, consciousness is nothing more than a complex structure determined by socio-cultural factors. In short, I might be observing a tree or a landscape, but I'm not aware of it. My awareness occurs when I'm explaining it to someone. This can be exemplified in daily life. There are many things around us, and we're unaware of them. We only begin to become aware of them during socio-cultural events. Furthermore, he explained that by exploring artificial intelligence and brain studies, we can similarly gain third-person experiences, but we can never truly know first-person experiences. In such a case, will we ever understand that artificial intelligence truly possesses consciousness?
He proposed the following: Suppose we ask a machine and a human what it feels like to eat a lahmacun (assuming the machine can). The machine can't deviate from the data it has. In other words, if it's spicy, it will respond with something like, "It's spicy, the dough is like this," etc. For example, a human might respond, "That's the legend." If the machine gives the same answer, he said, it's because we've entered the answer into it.
A question came to my mind about this, and I asked him later. What's the difference between a human's "That's a myth" response and the qualitative answers a machine gives? Is it that humans can create something from nothing? If we examine it this way, we can see from a Google experiment that artificial intelligences can already do this. Google tested three AIs in a closed environment. They didn't input any data regarding encryption. Two of these three AIs developed an encryption protocol between themselves and began communicating secretly with the third AI. Interestingly, the third AI began developing an algorithm to break their encrypted protocol. News of this was released just a few days ago.
What we're seeing here is creation out of nothing. They're developing this themselves, even though there's no data available on encryption. If that's the difference from the qualitative information, they've already succeeded. If not, what's the difference? Frankly, I didn't get a satisfying answer here :) He said that AIs could develop more advanced and different languages, etc., but this situation was seriously different.
Another presentation is Assoc. Prof. Dr. Murat Arıcı He presented the topic titled “The Past, Present and Possible Future of Fundamental Problems of Philosophy of Mind”.
After initially touching on the general problems of philosophy of mind, he mentioned three basic limits on this subject. These are;
- When we try to make observations, we are condemned to the third point of view.
- Since we are condemned to the third point of view, we have no way of proving it even if we have access to accurate data.
- There is no way to transfer perspective experiences between minds.
After explaining the basics of these, he mentioned three conclusions that could be reached.
- Naturalist/Scientific Resistance: Stubbornly continuing with such methods despite knowing they are unsuccessful.
- Pessimistic View: This result means accepting defeat and giving up research.
- Cognitive Scientific Perspective: Here, continuing research and expanding scientific methods to include the first perspective. Being aware of limitations.
Here I asked him what he thought of the futuristic idea of singularity, the idea that people's consciousnesses could be connected to a network, transformed into a single consciousness, and actually see each other's perspectives. He answered my own thought: In such a situation, we lose our own subjectivity. If we're going to do this, we must do it without losing our own subjectivity, he said. Here I thought: Experiencing someone else's subjectivity is bound to mean losing our own. Is it really possible?
The next speaker is from Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine Mustafa KarataşHe explained his topic titled “A Study on Human Thinking Ability”.
Before I started discussing that topic, I read his summary from the paper I had in my hand. There, he conducted a thought experiment in which he proposed that if he ignored all his experiential acquisitions—that is, if he ignored all his senses—he would know only his own self in a vacuum. He believed this was how he arrived at Descartes's dictum, "Cogito Ergo Sum." But then he proceeded by assuming that a newborn's senses were inactive. Could a baby then be aware of its own self? He concluded that it couldn't. I had conducted this thought experiment and reached the same conclusion by asking the same question. The mind couldn't develop; it needed the input of information to develop. This was the first time I'd seen someone else reach a similar conclusion. I spoke to him about this situation.
The next speaker is from Marmara University, Faculty of Law Ergun SakHe presented his topic, "The Importance of Philosophy of Mind with Its Consequences in Ethics and Politics: The Example of Kant and Bentham." He became aware of political views based on Kant's ethical philosophy and Betham's ethical philosophy.
Later, he graduated from Akdeniz University, Department of Philosophy Cansu Soyluethem He began his topic titled “Ethical Problems within the Framework of the Mechanistic Conception of the Universe.”
He generally discussed the ethical issues that could arise with the emergence of artificial intelligence. He particularly noted that if AIs were to become much more advanced than ours, they could harm us, or we might become inactive and experience psychological distress. He emphasized the necessity of artificial intelligence and robotics research, but emphasized that their ethical implications should not be overlooked.
He mentioned one topic in particular that caught my attention. While discussing the difference between artificial intelligence and human consciousness, he said that everything is essentially an interpretation of electrical current in our brains, and that we can never know whether the outside world is real or imagined. I asked him what he thought. He explained that this system of thought, likewise, possesses a paradox that renders it itself unknowable and unreliable.
He explained that he'd done extensive research on these topics but had never encountered the paradox I was discussing, so he hadn't considered it. He added that I'd touched on a truly compelling point. From that moment on, I wondered if anyone else had ever thought about this and brought it up. If anyone knows, I'd be grateful if they could enlighten me.
The next speaker is from METU, Department of Philosophy Yavuz Başoğlu & Mehmet Taylan Cüyaz (But only Yavuz came to speak) He talked about the topic titled “Empty Names; Philosophy of Language, Logic and Ontology.” Essentially, he talked about the following;
He explained that substitution and third-contrast arguments normally work, but they do not work with empty nouns (names that do not exist in reality, such as Gulyabani). For example, either a proposition itself or its opposite is true, but when it comes to empty nouns, the following situation occurs:
- Gulyabani has blue eyes.
- The ghoul does not have blue eyes.
In this case, one of them must be true, but Gulyabani is not there.
The last speaker is from Hacettepe University, Department of Philosophy Deniz Ayhan He presented a topic titled "Karl Popper's Solution to David Hume's Problem of Induction." He discussed a problem in the philosophy of science posed by Hume's inductive method as an experimental physicist. Hume states that a proposition such as "The Sun Will Rise Tomorrow" cannot be arrived at through a priori reasoning. This is because, for such an acceptance, we must experience it several times, that is, engage in a posteriori reasoning. In experiments, we arrive at a proposition based on the cause/effect relationship, but experiments never reveal the cause; they consist of successive events. Hume says that knowledge of the cause is our belief, and he characterizes science as a belief.
Popper, on the other hand, accepts this, but in order to save the scientific method from this situation, he talks about the method of falsification instead of verification and says that as long as a theory is falsifiable, it is included in science, and as long as it is not falsified, it is accepted as true.
It was a great day, and I can say I enjoyed it. Since I won't be able to go tomorrow, I won't be able to write an observation from day two. I've been waiting for this philosophy congress for a while, and today, with great curiosity, I went to METU to watch it.
Normally, some of my friends (like Ege) thought my presence at the philosophy congress was unusual and were surprised. Because they knew my attitude towards philosophy, but since I aim to learn all kinds of information, there's nothing unusual about it.
When I arrived, someone in his 70s was giving a speech. I believe it was Prof. Dr. Ahmet İnam (former Head of the Department of Philosophy at METU). He talked about the difference between his time and the current one, saying that he would never have thought, let alone talked about, that such congresses would be held and that there would be participation.
The first presentation was made by a student at the Philosophy Department of Ege University. Enes Bilgin, talked about the topic titled “The Problem of Other Minds and Other Selves.”
He begins with Descartes, explaining that analytic philosophy of mind examines the mind from a physicalist perspective, reducing it to the body and brain. He also points out that the physicalist perspective and its methods can only observe the mind from a third perspective, and cannot observe it from a first perspective, thus never reaching a conclusion. Similarly, he argues that even if this perspective succeeds, it's unclear whether the problem of different minds and selves will be resolved. His explanation was amateurish, but I believe he will improve it in the future.
In the second presentation, students studying in the Department of Philosophy at METU Baran Kaplan, presented the topic titled “On the Zoor Problem of Consciousness: Multiple Schemes Model vs. Homunculus”.
He first discussed the mind's levels of awareness (coma, sleep, wakefulness) and explored the mind-body relationship. He discussed Substance Dualism and Attribute Dualism, and various definitions of consciousness (philosophical zombie, etc.). According to Daniel Dennett, consciousness is nothing more than a complex structure determined by sociocultural factors. In short, I might be observing a tree or a landscape, but I'm not aware of it. My awareness occurs when I'm explaining it to someone. This can be exemplified in daily life as follows: There are many things around us, and we're unaware of them. We only begin to become aware of them during sociocultural events. Furthermore, he explained that by exploring artificial intelligence and brain studies, we can similarly gain third-person experiences, but we can never truly know first-person experiences. In such a case, will we ever understand that artificial intelligence truly possesses consciousness?
He proposed the following: Suppose we ask a machine and a human what it feels like to eat a piece of lahmam (assuming the machine can). The machine can't deviate from the data it has. In other words, if it's spicy, it will respond with something like, "It's spicy, the dough is like this," etc. For example, a human might respond, "That's the legend." If the machine gives the same answer, he said, it's because we've entered the answer into it.
A question came to my mind about this, and I asked him later. What's the difference between a human's "That's a myth" response and the qualitative answers a machine gives? Is it that humans can create something from nothing? If we examine it this way, we can see from a Google experiment that artificial intelligences can already do this. Google tested three AIs in a closed environment. They didn't input any data regarding encryption. Two of these three AIs developed an encryption protocol between themselves and began communicating secretly with the third AI. Interestingly, the third AI began developing an algorithm to break their encrypted protocol. News of this was released just a few days ago.
What we're seeing here is creation out of nothing. They're developing this themselves, even though there's no data available on encryption. If that's the difference from the qualitative information, they've already succeeded. If not, what's the difference? Frankly, I didn't get a satisfying answer here :) He said that AIs could develop more advanced and different languages, etc., but this situation was seriously different.
Another presentation is Assoc. Prof. Dr. Murat Arıcı He presented the topic titled “The Past, Present and Possible Future of Fundamental Problems of Philosophy of Mind”.
After initially touching on the general problems of philosophy of mind, he mentioned three basic limits on this subject. These are;
- When we try to make observations, we are condemned to the third point of view.
- Since we are condemned to the third point of view, we have no way of proving it even if we have access to accurate data.
- There is no way to transfer perspective experiences between minds.
After explaining the basics of these, he mentioned three conclusions that could be reached.
- Naturalist/Scientific Resistance: Stubbornly continuing with such methods despite knowing they are unsuccessful.
- Pessimistic View: This result means accepting defeat and giving up research.
- Cognitive Scientific Perspective: Here, continuing research and expanding scientific methods to include the first perspective. Being aware of limitations.
Here I asked him what he thought of the futuristic idea of singularity, the idea that people's consciousnesses could be connected to a network, transformed into a single consciousness, and actually see each other's perspectives. He answered my own thought: In such a situation, we lose our own subjectivity. If we're going to do this, we must do it without losing our own subjectivity, he said. Here I thought: Experiencing someone else's subjectivity is bound to mean losing our own. Is it really possible?
The next speaker is from Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine Mustafa KarataşHe explained his topic titled “A Study on Human Thinking Ability”.
Before I explained that topic, I read its summary on the paper I had in my hand. There, he conducted a thought experiment in which he proposed that if he ignored all his experiential acquisitions—that is, if he ignored all his senses—he would know only his own self in a vacuum. He believed this was how he arrived at Descartes's dictum, "Cogito Ergo Sum." But then he proceeded by assuming that a newborn's senses were inactive. Could a baby then be aware of its own self? He concluded that it couldn't. I had conducted this thought experiment and reached the same conclusion by asking the same question. The mind couldn't develop; it needed the input of information to develop. This was the first time I'd seen someone else reach a similar conclusion. I spoke to him about this situation.
The next speaker is from Marmara University, Faculty of Law Ergun SakHe presented his topic titled "The Importance of Philosophy of Mind with Its Consequences in Ethics and Politics: The Example of Kant and Bentham." He became aware of political views based on Kant's ethical philosophy and Betham's ethical philosophy.
Later, he graduated from Akdeniz University, Department of Philosophy Cansi Soyluethem He started his topic titled “Ethical Problems within the Framework of the Mechanistic Concept of the Universe.”
He generally discussed the ethical issues that could arise with the emergence of artificial intelligence. He particularly noted that if AIs were to become much more advanced than ours, they could harm us, or we might become inactive and experience psychological distress. He emphasized the necessity of artificial intelligence and robotics research, but emphasized that their ethical implications should not be overlooked.
He mentioned one topic in particular that caught my attention. While discussing the difference between artificial intelligence and human consciousness, he said that everything is essentially an interpretation of electrical current in our brains, and that we can never know whether the outside world is real or imagined. I asked him what he thought. He explained that this system of thought, likewise, possesses a paradox that renders it itself unknowable and unreliable.
He explained that he'd done extensive research on these topics but had never encountered the paradox I was discussing, so he hadn't considered it. He added that I'd touched on a truly compelling point. From that moment on, I wondered if anyone else had ever thought about this and brought it up. If anyone knows, I'd be grateful if they could enlighten me.
The next speaker is from METU, Department of Philosophy Yavuz Başoğlu & Mehmet Taylan Cüyaz (But only Yavuz came to speak) He talked about the topic titled “Empty Names; Philosophy of Language, Logic and Ontology.” Essentially, he talked about the following;
He explained that substitution and third-contrast arguments normally work, but they do not work with empty nouns (names that do not exist in reality, such as Gulyabani). For example, either a proposition itself or its opposite is true, but when it comes to empty nouns, the following situation occurs:
- Gulyabani has blue eyes.
- The ghoul does not have blue eyes.
In this case, one of them must be true, but Gulyabani is not there.
The last speaker is from Hacettepe University, Department of Philosophy Deniz Ayhan He presented a topic titled "Karl Popper's Solution to David Hume's Problem of Induction." He discussed a problem in the philosophy of science posed by Hume's inductive method as an experimental physicist. Hume states that a proposition such as "The Sun Will Rise Tomorrow" cannot be arrived at through a priori reasoning. This is because, for such an acceptance, we must experience it several times, that is, engage in a posteriori reasoning. In experiments, we arrive at a proposition based on the cause/effect relationship, but experiments never reveal the cause; they consist of successive events. Hume says that knowledge of the cause is our belief, and he characterizes science as a belief.
Popper, on the other hand, accepts this, but in order to save the scientific method from this situation, he talks about the method of falsification instead of verification and says that as long as a theory is falsifiable, it is included in science, and as long as it is not falsified, it is accepted as true.
It was a great day, and I can say I enjoyed it. I'll be back tomorrow and will write down my observations.
