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The famous mind-body problem, the source of so much controversy over the past two millennia, has a simple solution. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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More importantly, equally well layed out is the contruction of his own view of what he calls "biological naturalism". This view is neither a flavor of behaviorilism nor any other kind of reductionist attempt to deny consciousness. Indeed, consciousness retains it's unique position in his model without the kind of apologetic argument or mysticism (of the kind that usually occurs as a result of unwittingly thinking in the Cartesian dilemma mindset).
Most shocking to me was the way in which Searle argued that the mind is not and cannot be an information processing system. As counterintuitive and remarkable as that may sound, it is quite apparently true after reading his arguments. He is not saying that we do not *think*, but rather that equating *thinking* and *information processing* is in error, primarily because the interpretation of symbols, syntax and semantics requires an outside intelligence to make the interpretation, so to say that we are information processing machines makes no sense for it is exactly our own intelligence that we are trying to explain. The devastating impact for AI and cognitive science from this viewpoint is also duly noted in a rather understated way.
Likewise, the 'unconscious' loses it's imagined place as part of the mind, replaced with an equally (or perhaps moreso)complex 'Background' of non-conscious and potentially-conscious components. Also, so many activities of the brain that have been deemed as "mental" turn out to have no basis for such an ascription: it turns out they are anthropomorphisms placed on neurobiological processes that neither have intentionality nor mentality. As a result (my opinion), much of psychology and probably many theories of neurobiology are as wayward as their AI counterparts.
In the end, the 'mind' that one is left with remains utterly rich and complex, with consciousness and all subjective experience intact and valid. However, now bereft of the possibility of computational models and rules and such to understand the brain in an abstracted programmatic way, and bereft of anthropomorphisms of lower-level brain functioning, we find that the brain is an organ - an organ of great ability and complexity that will require an immense effort to understand and appreciate.
The importance of this book's themes is only overshadowed by the extraordinarily lucid style with which Searle approaches his subject matter. By taking actual human experience as his starting point, Searle's argument gains force as well as meaning to less philosphically inclined readers. Searle has a knack for making complex issues in recent philosophy accessible to the less experienced reader while not losing any persuasiveness in conveying his argument.
This book is a wonderful introduction to the philosophy of consciousness for anyone who has not done extensive work in the field and also a complex and intriguing argument that needs to be considered by the most serious philosophers.
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