The Ego Trick (baggini, Julian) / quote 52 of 254
The computer that thought it was res cogitans
There was a wonderful cartoon that circulated around university departments when I was an undergraduate that dramatised this fallacy beautifully. A thought bubble emerges from a computer. ‘I think,’ it says. In the next frame, ‘I think, therefore I am.’ Cogito ergo sum, in Descartes’ memorable Latin phrase. The computer then goes on to continue a chain of thought that essentially follows that of Descartes, whose famous cogito argument shares the same basic logic as Avicenna’s falling man. As a thinking thing, the computer concludes, as does Descartes, that it is this capacity for thought which defines what it is, and that other features, such as its metal case and silicon chips, do not comprise its essential nature. It is res cogitans – a thinking thing – not res extensa – an extended, material thing. Overjoyed by this discovery the computer starts dancing around, only to accidentally pull its plug out of the socket. The dancing and the thought bubbles abruptly cease.