Final project (movie A.I.)

I chose the movie, A.I. (Artificial Intelligence). In this movie, polar ice caps have melted and the resulting raise of the ocean waters has drowned all the coastal cities of the world. The human race, which was withdrawn to the interior of the continents, keeps advancing and reached to the point of creating realistic robots, called mechas to serve them. In this movie, the main character is David who is an artificial kid. He is the first one to have real feelings, especially everlasting love for his mother, Monica. Monica adopts David as a substitute for her real son. David lives happily with Monica. However, when their real son returns home after a cure, David’s life changes dramatically.

Monica decides to hide David instead of sending him to by destroyed. David is eventually abandoned by Monica in the forest with his teddy robot. Then, David is being captured by an anti-mecha Flesh Fair where abandoned mechas are destroyed in front of cheering crowds. David is nearly killed but the crowd is sways by his realistic nature and his pleading and David escapes with Joe which is also an abandoned robot. Then he sets out for the journey in search of “blue fairy” that he read in the story of Pinocchio who will turn him into real human child and bring him back to Monica.

Then later, he finds the blue fairy and asks to make him real human repeatedly. And he become frozen with sea water which makes his internal power source to drain away. Then millions years later, human-kind is extinct and mechas get more human-like, and more advanced. Then mechas find David and recognizes that he knew living humans, making them special and unique. David is revived and walks to the frozen Blue fairy statue, which cracks and collapses as he touches it. Then at David’s insistence, they recreate Monica from DNA in the lock of her hair which had been saved by Teddy. Even though she can live only a single day, David spends the happiest day of his life with Monica.

In this movie, there is a philosophical question about materialism, dualism and moral at the same time. If there is no spirit of non-material thing but just matter, then there is no need for us to care about morality. Then, question such as is it moral to kill David who is artificial robot child with emotion might appear. Even though David was artificial child, he developed to have emotion of love and hatred over Martin, original son of Monica.

To this question, materialism might say yes or wouldn’t really answer this question, because materialists believe that it’s superstition that makes man vicious, unhappy, and immoral.  They believe that humans depend on supernatural to get these feelings which is just nothing. Therefore as materialists believe that we’re just made up of matter, and as there is nothing after the death, there is no reason why it would be immoral to kill David.

However, dualist would say differently. They would say no. Dualist believes that there is physical stuff and spiritual stuff. Physical things have size and mass while spiritual things are in time, but they take up no space. They think the emotion as one of non-material stuff which makes human unique from other organism. Therefore even though David is made of material, as long as he has emotion, dualist would be reluctant to kill. It will be against their standard of morality to kill David.

The opinion of my interviewee was quite between dualist and materialist. Her opinion was that as long as David was not human, but just with the emotion, it’s accepted as moral act to kill him. The interviewee is Christian, therefore, held the belief that human is the only creation of God which could be immoral to kill without reason. This aspect might be kind of dualist because she believes in the existence of God and spiritual world.

In my opinion, it’s immoral to kill David. Even though, he was made out of materials, he still has emotions, which are one of the symbols of human. Also we have to consider that human created him, for the benefit of human. However, if we kill David, then we will feel somehow self-guilty. The fact that we are filled with “self-guiltiness” means we have done something immoral, which means killing David is immoral. Therefore, killing David who is an artificial boy with emotion is immoral.

ch 22./ 23

I agree with theistic package, but not with the bliss. It's because even though we believe in God and there is meaning in our life, we can never guarantee that there will be happiness for everyone. Many people who believe in God might not have happiness. Maybe that's why many people are committing suicide. Even though people believe in God and believe that they have meaningful life, they might not have bliss which makes their life gloomy and hard. For example, missionaries who are in harsh environment such as North Korea, or Afghanistan, firmly believe in God and life after death. They believe they have mission given by God to spread gospel around the world. And this makes them to believe that they have meaningful life. However, it's never true that they have bliss throughout their life. Even though they have meaning in their life, missionaries are likely to have harsh environment or difficult situations such as financial problem or governmental interference on spreading gospel. These make their life harsher which means it's not always correct to say that believeing God or theistic package is related with bliss.

TED video

Materialism believes that everything is a material object. There're no minds, souls or spirits that are non-material. Everything is physical only. Materialists argue their claim with the brain chemistry argument. According to brain chemistry, those functions that are considered to be working with mentality, such as thinking, memory, emotion or pain, are results of chemical processes in brain. Everything is the outcome of psychological condition by means of drugs and other physical therapies. For example, when we love someone, it's not that our soul is existing and causing love, but it's hormone which is causing brain to love someone or something. Therefore materialists are claiming that we are no more than just a matter and electrochemical system.

In TED video, Ramachandran is basically supporting the brain chemistry argument which is the side of materialism. In brain, there are hundreds billions of nerve cells and they carry out each functions, such as consciousness or memory. And when these cells are damaged, the functions such as consciousness or memory will not work properly. In this video, the speaker gave 3 examples to explain brain chemistry.

First, he talked about Capgras syndrome. It's a disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend or a family member has been replaced by an identical-looking imposter. Usually when we think about the memory, or self-awareness, we think them as some kind of mentality. This makes us to think that we have  minds which is what dualist says. However, if part of the brain that is associated with memory is damaged and we can't recall who the person is, then it proves that we don't actually have soul or mind but we have brain which is just a group of matter. This defeats dualists.

Second, he talked about phantom limb pain. According to his experiment, he had used mirror box to relieve phantom limb pain and move cut limb without phantom. The patient with phantom limb pain reflected his normal arm in the mirror. And when he moved the normal arm, he automatically moved phantom limb. Without looking at mirror, he couldn't move, but as soon as he looked at mirror again, he was able to move his phantom limb. This proves that by these kind of tricks, we can easily control the our brain and self-awareness. Many people believe that self-awareness is something that we think as mentality, however, if this is the case, we can't say we have minds, but self-awareness is just part of brain functioning which means there is no minds and souls in human being, so it defeats dualists.

Third, he talked about synesthesia. Synesthesia is condition in which stimulation of one sensory leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory. In the video, he shows 2 shapes; a circle with smooth curve and another with croocked surface. Then people were told to decide which one would be booba and which one would be kiki. Then, most of them chose a shape with croocked surface a kiki. In this case, people were able to connect the word with the shape based on their experiences. In the brain sound and shape have cross-activated. However, when this part of brain is damaged again, then people won't be able to recognize things. Therefore this again shows that human beings are just no more than matters. Self-awareness that we hold to be mental stuff, is determined to be no more than one of brain functions which is just matter.

Agency theory

Truman Show- Freewill and determinism

Truman show is the movie that shows entire Truman's life. Truman lives in the world that is created by Christof, the director of Truman show.In the movie, Truman is given freedom within the world that is created for him. When we look at him from the outside of his world, he is forced to live within the enormous set of stage.

There might be theological challenge to Truman's freedom. In the movie, Christof acts as a God to Truman. He created the world for Truman, sets time, rises sun, and decides his family etc. He is always looking at Truman as God does. Therefore, Truman is not free because Christof can control Truman's action by changing his world which God can only do.

There might be scientific challenge to Truman's freedom. According to scientific challenge, everything that happens in nature has a cause. In the movie, the world is created by Christof which caused Truman to act in typical ways such as looking for truth, and lover. And Christof made this movie to entertain people which is another cause. Like this, every cause is chained to other cause.

In my opinion, Truman is free, because he does everything he wants. For example, he eats whatever he wants, he tries to find the woman he loves and he even seeks to find the truth. He can do everything that he wants within that world. According to compatibilism, he is free, because it's his desire to seek his lover and truth. He wants to love that woman and wants to know what the real truth is, so as compatibilist says that free act is an event caused by person's intention caused by an inner state of that person such as desire, Truman is actually free.

Agency theory would also say that Truman is free, but they would explain it differently. Agency theory believes that free action is an act caused by an agent. In the movie, the action and decision Truman make are free because Truman himself is intelligent being and therefore an agent. As agency theory believe that every event has cause, even though there is cause that triggered Truman to act in a certain way, his action is considered as free.

However, I think Truman is only free in the view of Truman, himself. When we try to analyze in the view of audience, Truman is not free at all. According to scientific determinists, a free action is an event having to do with a person's intentions that is without a cause. In this case, the world Truman lives in is created by Christof, which means he is the cause of how Truman acts and lives. He is the one that determines the life of Truman. And as the principle of universal causality says everything has cause and every cause is event, there is no freedom for human. Therefore Truman is not free at all in the view of audience.

Milgram Experiment

Through Milgram's experiment, we can see what kind of an action agency theory believes as a free action. Agency theory believes that a free act is an act caused by an agent. In this experiment, the one who is commanding to continue the experiment acts as an agent, so in this case, his commands and pressure are becoming the cause for the person who is causing electric shock. Therefore, people who believe in agency theory would say that person who is causing electric shock is actually free, because the action is caused by an agent. However, agency theory would not fully agree with the principle of universal causality, because they believe that every event has a cause, but not in a causal chain with a very long history. Also when we compare Agency theory with scientific determinists, they, scientific determinists, would not agree that person who is causing shock is actually free, because they define free action as an event without a cause. But then as unversal causality says everything is caused by cause, person's action in this experiment is not free. Same as determinists, indeterminists would also say that this man is not free, becuase there was a cause which is commander, who caused him to cause electric shock. However, compatibilist would say that the action is free because this action was caused by an inner state of that person, or decision to act.

When we sum all these up, we can see that this man was actually free according to the Agency theory. However, we can't judge whether he was ethical or not because even though he was free, he was ordered to give an electric shot. With the agency theory, he would unethical as this was his freewill. However, in reality, it would be hard to judge whether he is ethical or not.

Question 9

I don't think we actually have "freewill". Our actions are always caused by other events. For example, when I choose what to wear, I won't choose something very odd, because I certainly know that this is out of fashion. So at this point, the fashion trend is determining what I would wear. Therefore as this choice was not my sole will, I can't say I was free to choose. I might say I was forced to choose. Also, because of our instict, we might not be free. For example, when we are hungry, we automatically look for food. It's not that I'm brainstorming whether to eat or not, but I'm just following my instinct, which is not my freewill. Therefore, in our life, I don't think I have freewill, but we choose something that is already determined.