Can Fish Climb Trees?
An Introduction To Mysterianism
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced — Soren Kierkegaard
Good scientists study the most important problems they think they can solve. It is, after all, their professional business to solve problems, not merely to grapple with them — Sir Peter Medawar, The Art of the Soluble (1967)
Mysterianism and consciousness are vast topics to cover in a small article such as mine. At a fundamental level, Artificial Intelligence (AI) seeks to understand human consciousness. However, there is a school of philosophical thought called ‘mysterianism’ which postulates that humans can never truly understand consciousness. Ever. This article looks at mysterianism, its main proponents and ends with a question-what is the future of AI if we cannot understand consciousness?
A Rather Confusing Concept
In simple terms, consciousness is similar to awareness and yet it is absolutely confounding. The concept of consciousness is multi-faceted and therefore it becomes a matter of different perspectives. A scientist may have a…
