Paradox

PASCAL’S IMPROBABLE CALCULATIONS 219uses Saint Anselm’s ontological proof: God is the greatestconceivable being. It is better to exist than not exist. Therefore,we must conceive of God as existing.We may think that Descartes’s philosophy overworksGod. But after Descartes visited Pascal in 1647, Pascal complainedto his sister Gilberte, “I cannot forgive Descartes: inhis entire philosophy he would like to do without God; buthe could not help allowing him a flick of the fingers to set theworld in motion; after that Descartes had no more use forGod.” (Coleman 1985, 19)Descartes is impressed that we have access to abstract truthssuch as 10,000 - 2,000 = 8,000. This truth is not a summary ofpast experiences in which you have removed 2,000 objects from10,000 objects and found the remainder to be 8,000 objects. Youhave never actually counted so many objects. And if you did,you would not accept any “counterexample” to 10,000 - 2,000= 8,000. The equation transcends experience. From this loftyperspective, it is hard to see how gears could perform thefundamental operations of arithmetic. Yet, there sat Pascal’scalculator grinding out differences on the tax commissioner’sdesk.When descendants of Pascal’s adding machine acquiredthe versatility of the 1950s “electronic brains,” these mechanicalmarvels were increasingly regarded as near counterexamplesto Descartes’s dualism. We now feel an awkward kinshipwith computers—especially the robots in science fiction.Disciples of Alan Turing (1912-1954) welcome our inclinationto attribute minds to machines. They see automata asan opportunity to demystify consciousness. What matters tofunctionalists is what the thing does, not what it is made of.This is the thrust of Turing’s test for thought: if a computercan converse in a way that is indistinguishable from a human