John Locke presents the idea that objects in this world have a primary and secondary quality.
Primary qualities: Primary quality is what the naked eye sees and observes at first glance, not relying on subjective judgments, they exist independently. Locke gives the example of olives, if olive is round in shape there is no reason to define that olive as a different shape say square.
Secondary Qualities: Secondary qualities evoke sensations in our head with respect to the object. For example, cilantro and olive do not feel or smell the same way. Secondary qualities are learned by an individual as he goes through life. Knowledge acquired through secondary qualities does not provide with objective facts about the object.
John Loke’s argument suggests that while everyone identifies and feels the olive in the same way, in that case, everyone has the same primary reaction to objects regardless of their own opinion or past encounters with the object. But for individuals who do not like to eat olives will have a different secondary response to olives and they will choose not to eat it, describing their secondary qualities. The main difference between these two qualities is that the primary qualities of objects evokes ideas that resemble certain actions with objects. Our ability to identify and react does the rest, that’s why it is hard to make this claim.
James on Problem Solving
Without addressing the doubts, Locke looks to describe reasoning is means end. Harish’s example of balancing a checkbook; one adds up, subtracts, etc. for example when we are multiplying, we voluntarily carry over the numbers to the left. This voluntary action of carrying numbers can be associated with means-ends reasoning as we automatically wait for the number left over to pop up and carry it over. Or is it described as a means of reasoning and not ends, means referring to the arithmetic not problem-solving. The issue is the categorization of problem-solving, Locke’s argument holds more substance as he talks about the brain working on its own and we are at the brain’s mercy. It is more reasonable to believe that Locke has a more strong argument. With the current generation still unable to figure out the brain to its full potential. Humans still have diseases like dementia, that consistently makes me think that genetics and upbringing have a major role in a person life as it shapes their brain to make decisions and act on them. No one is born to dislike olives or cilantro we ourselves make those decisions through learning and adapting to our environment. Hence I agree with John Locke when he says we are at the brains mercy, as our brain is merely a device that we use as a medium to make decisions and how we wire our brain is up to us.
Seriously? My brain is a computer?!
Supporting either argument would be supporting an old belief that now rests on a slope slipping towards “the future”. The argument supporting that computers cannot have robust subjective conscious experiences is only true based on the knowledge that we all publicly have thus made it only true for the time being. Due to the technological advances in AI today, this statement sounding so much like a sci-fi story could be true in the near future. For one to simply say “our brains aren’t like computers because computers can’t experience emotions” would be too “here or there” when the topic itself is neither anymore. I don’t think that this is a good argument due to the number of similarities they have with each other. To completely write off the confounding amount of parallelism in the functionality of each because of one missing aspect that is unique to the living wouldn’t be just. Computers were invented to “think” and solve problems more efficiently than we do as groups but they do so base off of code written by the living and feeling. We were unable to add an artificially emotional aspect to what we were creating at that time and even if we were able to, it would have been left out. I say this because we were creating a strictly obedient machine with one function, to do without question or hesitation. Vice versa, humans are meant to feel, create and efficiently solve problems in order to survive but we don’t have just one function. So, to say that both are similar in many but not all ways and have many increasing indistinguishable traits would be far more accurate than simply taking a side.
