THE BRAIN AS A NATURALLY OCCURRING CONSCIOUS MACHINE

For some people, the question is a no֊brainer. Or, more precisely, a brainer. The argument, as expressed by the philosopher John Searle, goes like this: “The brain is a machine. It is a conscious machine … So of course some machines can think and be conscious” (1998: 202). The conclusion, however, is only as robust as its premises.

Take the first premise: that the brain is a machine. It is, of course, possible to describe the brain in machine֊like terms if machines are defined in a certain way. But we at once run into problems. Machines are semi-autonomous tools. They get on with what they have to do to some extent by themselves. Semi-autonomous, to some extent. The most sophisticated machine in the world still has to be taken to the place where it is to operate and, more broadly, be plugged into the niche where it can function. It has to be switched on, tended and switched off. It also has a rather narrow function or set of functions, the definition of whose nature requires conscious beings. It is we, not our machines, who have goals; and those goals make sense only as part of a multitude of interlocking goals. If the brain was a machine and it was the kind of thing that neuralizers of consciousness say that it is, then its autonomy would be of an entirely different order from that of any machines we know.