Are There Ghosts In Your Machines?

Almost everyone has thought they’ve seen ghosts or ghostly movements at night. It might be just imaginary, your eyes playing wicked tricks on you, but one thing’s for sure, annually on June 12th’s Ghost in the Machine Day isn’t imaginary.

This day’s name isn’t quite what it seems. It’s not related to ghosts at all but to a branch of philosophy. So, to understand that, we’ll have to understand philosophy first.

Philosophy, or love of wisdom, is the study of the general and fundamental questions, such as existence, minds, values, language, knowledge, and reason. How do we know what we know? Do we even exist? Or are we only our minds? These are just some of the many questions that philosophers ask themselves. But to most people, the answers are pretty direct. I know what I know. And I must exist. However, it isn’t as simple as it seems. And meet one philosopher who tackled these seemingly unanswerable questions, French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist, René Descartes.

He thought he couldn’t rely on any current knowledge of his understanding since there was no way of knowing if he was in a dream. But eventually, people wake up from a dream. Well, what if it was a dream that lasted forever? OK, don’t worry, because there’s a way out of it, according to Descartes. He doubted everything in existence, his body, surroundings, everything, all except that he doubted. So, therefore, we must at least think. So then came the “aha” moment, “Cogito Ergo Sum.” I think, therefore I am. Or is it?

When understanding “Ghost in the Machine,” there’s the brain-racking question: “Are you a mind with a body or a body with a mind?” No, you haven’t misheard. These are two concepts and are very different.

If you’re a mind with a body, then our body is only a temporary embodiment, and that your mind can exist outside as well. That also leads to the old question about whether the body and the mind are separate. If the two are different things, then how can a purely mental thing control a physical thing? Assuming that it can, how can it only control your body, not others? Some have come up with ways to get around this. One is the idea that when you think about reaching for something, it’s God who does that. Or that the material world is just a big illusion.

The other way of thinking is that we’re a body with a mind. What we think of as consciousness is only chemical reactions in our brain. From our birth, our mental development gets formed with interactions with the physical world.

And all these are concerning future technologies such as mind uploading, transferring our mind to a computer. What do you think? Are you a mind with a body or vice versa? Are you just stuck in a big dream with everyone else? Was Descartes mistaken from the very start? Can we even know? Or is it something else that no one has ever thought of before? Well, those questions are for your mind to solve.

That is the end of this production, brought to you by the New News Newsminute. Thank you, and tune in next time for more (if you’re even there). And by the way, maybe you should just make sure that there are no ghosts in your machines.