About cogito ex machina

Who's behind this?

I'm David Morgan, I live in the UK and have interests in Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Philosophy, especially the Philosophy of Mind and the Problem of Consciousness, which is all sharpened by the prospect of an upcoming Singularity or Intelligence Explosion.

I obtained my BA in Philosophy and Literature from Warwick University and my professional career has been in Information Technology, as a programmer, business analyst and product manager.

Philosophical labels can be difficult things, and I don't know yet what I really think about these issues, but I can say that I'm not a Cartesian Dualist and also that I see the emergence of machine intelligence and even machine consciousness as possible in principle.

What does the name cogito ex machina mean?

For me it means 'thinking from a machine'.

The words are Latin, although the phrase itself may not be grammatically-correct Latin.

cogito indicates thinking or reasoning, as in Descartes' famous conclusion: cogito ergo sum, which is generally translated as I think therefore I am.

ex machina indicates from the machine. It is the title of a beautiful film that explores themes of intelligence, consciousness and human values in robots. It's also a fragment from the Latin phrase deus ex machina, literally 'a god from the machine', which can be used in philosophy to refer to something metaphysical or outside the world of cause and effect, but ex machina here doesn't imply dualism, rather it echoes Gilbert Ryle's dismissal of dualism as imagining a 'ghost in the machine'.

So in the end the site name cogito ex machina is just a mash-up, snagging several strands of philosophy and culture.

How do I post comments?

The site is static HTML with no Database or CMS behind it, so posting comments directly on the site is not possible, however you can open issues on the GitHub project where I maintain the site. If you want to contribute content then please fork the GitHub repository and submit a pull request.

All content on this site is Copyright (c) 2019 by David Morgan and may be used under the terms of the CC-BY license:

Creative Commons License
cogito ex machina by David Morgan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.