AUTOMATA.

WILLIAM JAMES argued for human automata in an essay called "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?" (1904). This debate has implications for our discussion on whether animals are automata. De facto, if humans do not have consciousness then the other animals also will be automata.

For James we were just wrong when we thought there was such a thing as consciousness. He argued there is a simple category mistake going on; consciousness in his argument is a nonentity. He claimed we discover consciousness by way of division. His example was paint (of the artist variety, not the stuff you put on your walls!). He claimed we find the thing called “consciousness” by separating out all the constituent parts such as, the oil and the pigment of the paint. He further argued we should go about the task of discovering consciousness not through this method of subtraction but through means of addition. What we seek then is found by looking at the completed product not the individual parts.

This is all well and good but he gave himself a problem. He tried to explain the mental picture show that (I assume) you are experiencing at this time, such as your awareness of where you are, and of what you are looking at. His solution was that the thoughts you think you are currently experiencing are extended thoughts. So the room you are currently sitting in somehow is an extended thought. Again to use James's own example, a ‘foot rule’ (something that is one foot long and not an instrument for measuring your feet) can have the extension of actually being in the world out there and an extended thought in your head. We were not persuaded by his argument but it is well worth reading James’s paper so you can form your own opinion. James did not talk about non-human experience. But it seems fair to assume he was talking about human and so animal automata.

 FOR THE SECOND THEORY, we have Descartes. He argued animals are automata, but humans through the ‘soul’ were not. He uses the argument that through language, we can discover that humans are thinking and are capable of explaining their complex thoughts to one another.

Descartes as far as we can see did not deal with what is popularly known as ‘body language’. The point you can make simply through a facial expression, or a shrug of your shoulders, is not the type of language we can dismiss as a non-event. But by following Descartes, we are unable to explain why we rely very heavily on ‘body language’ to communicate. Humans it seems need this form of communication. (A question to stump Descartes: what would he think of mute people? Those who cannot hear or speak, who cannot vocalize or hear the sounds of language?)

The problem that surfaces here is how we can explain away the phenomenon of the dog that cowers in the corner on ‘bonfire night’ (a ‘celebration’ with fireworks in the UK, on the 5th November, every year) as this seems to be the same type of non verbal communication we express. Or, how a horse seems to ‘know’ if it has been hurt by accident or not and will react accordingly.

Zoologists suggest that animals (right down to insect level!) have a form of communicating with other animals of the same species. Descartes gives himself the problem of explaining firstly why he believes non-verbal communication plays no part in the play of life. Secondly, how can he account for the apparently simplistic language of whale song or bird song and why they should not count as a language at all?