The Mind of a Cat

The other day, provoked by reading Iain Bank’s latest SF novel: Surface Detail, thought that perhaps one of the practical applications of philosphical mediaiton on the nature of mind was the nagging question of whether a machine could ever be conscious or self aware like  me and you.

On Twitter, Marc Bernstein of Eastgate and Tinderbox fame asked the obvious question of how one would ever know a machine was self aware. A very good question because the nature of subjective experience is that it is accessable only to one mind, the one expereiencing it.

Now when it comes to other people, I can never experience what its like to be  them subjectively. Yet I make a very strong assumption that they are experiencing a mind pretty much exactly the way that I do.

The reason I make the assumption that other people share subjective awareness is by analogy. While I can read descriptions written by others or directly query my family and friends about their subjective experience, why should I trust them? I trust them because the look and act just like I do. So its a pragmatic assumption that they experience the same cognitive function as me.

A machine could be self aware and try to convince me, but it will be a very hard sell because of the lack of analogous processes. It may or may not be a true claim by the machine intelligence. I just don’t know what it would take to convince me.

Looking in an entirely different direction provides further insight into the power of analogy. We look to animals as models of our own cognition. In my own current field of drug development, we use a large toolbox of animal cognition models to test new drugs. We test drugs on animal behaviors that reflect target internal human states. For example, drugs to improve memory in patients with Alzheimer’s Disease are examined in rats swimming in water mazes where they have to remember the right way to go. We can’t read a rat a story and ask recall questions, so behavioral tests are substituted.

While we know that these animal models of human cognition have a variable track record in predicting drug effects in human disease, the philosophical point is that we rely on animals because of analogy to the human brain. Similarly, I think that by analogy, we assume that animals, mammals at least, see, hear, taste, smell, and touch much as we do.

My cats may be without computers, words and music, but I believe they are conscious, experiencing minds. When we look at each other, there’s some one home on both sides. My technological props put me way ahead as a successful organism.

Author: James Vornov

I'm an MD, PhD Neurologist who left a successful academic career on the Faculty of The Johns Hopkins Medical School to develop new treatments in Biotech and Pharma. I became fascinated with how people actually make decisions based on the science of decision theory and emerging understanding of how the brain works to make decisions. My passion now is this deep explanation of what has been the realm of philosophy, psychology and self help but is now understood as brain function. By understanding our brains, I believe we can become happier, more successful people. View all posts by James Vornov