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Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 23:10:09 -0700
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From: Joshua Lederberg To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" Subject: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."
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Sender: Joshua Lederberg Subject: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."
<<<<<
>Sarah Stein writes
> Can anyone tell me the origins and meaning of the phrase "ghost in the
machine," as well as some >history of its usage?
>>>>
This is the title of a book by Arthur Koestler, and refers to the
purported inadequacy of mechanistic theory to account for the
"soul". It is equivalent to Bergson's elan vital; and the counter-
statement is nowhere pressed more forcefully than by Francis Crick in
the title of his latest book.
Koestler is also using the phrase in the context of original sin,
if I may paraphrase, that man's evolutionary heritage ensures an
irreducible propensity for violence.
CN PR6021/K78/G427
Aa Koestler, Arthur
TI The ghost in the machine.
CL 384 p.
PP New York: Macmillan.
DA 1967.
CN BF311/C928
Aa Crick, Francis
TI The astonishing hypothesis: the scientific search for the soul.
CL 317 p.
PP New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
DA 1994.
I debated this with Koestler in:
177. Lederberg, J., 1970.
"Orthobiosis: The Perfection of Man" in Nobel Symposium XIV
The Place of Value in a World of Facts, held in Stockholm,
Sweden, 9/69 (Arne Tiselius and Sam Nilsson, eds.),
John Wiley & Sons, In., New York, p.29-58.
(and see a brief essay at tail of this message.
My library has another book with an equivalent title:
CN BF367/K8601
Aa Kosslyn, Stephen Michael
TI Ghosts in the mind's machine: creating and using images in the brain.
CL 249 p.
PP New York: W. W. Norton.
DA 1983.
-------------------
Weekly Column in Washington Post: Science and Man
Dec. 28, 1968
Joshua Lederberg
Man Can Be Called 'Machine' -- But a Most Complex One
.fi
It is easy to find deeply ambivalent feelings about
science among intellectuals (even including some scientists),
in Congress, among alienated youths and among bewildered
citizens. We live in a scientific age whose glories and
terrors are both credited to science. At this level, we can
hardly deny that our ever-growing scientific mastery over the
forces of nature imposes an almost unbearable responsibility
on political authority and on a democratic electorate to learn
about, think about, plan for and use these forces for real
human benefit.
In this climate, many people have become highly sensitized
to more ethereal questions that are raised by the scientific
study of man. One such question is the doctrine of mechanism.
Dr. D.E. Wooldridge, a well known physicist and systems
engineer and a successful industrialist -- formerly president
of TRW (Thompson-Ramo-Wooldridge) Inc. -- has written several
excellent syntheses of present day thought in biology. His
latest work, "Mechanical Man -- the Physical Basis of Intelligent
Life," concludes "that a single body of natural laws operating
on a single set of material particles completely accounts for
the origin and properties of living organisms. Accordingly,
man is essentially no more than a complex machine."
A few eccentrics aside, the whole community of contemporary
science shares the view that the same laws of nature apply to
nonliving and living matter alike. All of us who investigate
the chemistry and physics of living organisms pursue our work
as if organisms were complex machines, and we find man to
exhibit no tissues or functions that would except him from
this way of analyzing human nature.
Nevertheless, we are or should be careful to state just
what we mean before we assert that "man is a machine," and much
more so before using the phrase "merely a machine." The
statement that man is "a mere machine," or a mere anything,
is a needless irritant to precise communication between
scientists and laymen. (We might better proclaim that
"man is merely the most complex product of organic evolution
on earth, the only organism whose intelligence has evolved
to the point that his culture far transcends his biological
endowment.")
The "mere machine" phrase is usually a retort to the
claim that there are mysteries of human nature that are, in
principle, beyond the reach of scientific investigation.
Scientists would do better to save their breath quarreling
about what they can analyze in principle; in their own work,
they are mercilessly pragmatic about confining their
conclusions to what they can examine in practice.
There are, in fact, theoretical limits to scientific
analysis that may justify men in repudiating Dr. Wooldridge's
assertion that "the concept of the machine-like nature of man
is incompatible with a long-cherished belief in human uniqueness."
There is nothing "mere" about a machine as complex as a man;
the word "machine" is just a manner of speaking about the
scientist's faith in a universe ordered by natural law. That
faith was expressed most eloquently by the French philosopher
the Marquis de Laplace, who averred that, given complete
knowledge of the universe at one instant, the scientist could
in principle compute all of its future states in infinite
detail.
In practice, we must now remind ourselves, the scientist
and his computers are machines that occupy space and consume
energy. Dr. Rolf Landauer of IBM has pointed out that the
process of calculation itself soon reaches fundamental limits.
If the whole visible universe were one gigantic computer, made
of components at the theoretical lower limit of size and
energy consumption, it would still be insufficient for some
problems that are soluble "in principle."
Far short of the complexity represented by a human being,
some mere machines called computers nevertheless have already
reached the point where their actual behavior is predictable
only to a rough approximation, and we must be careful to
program internal checks to detect when these highly individualized
robots deviate from their intended instructions.
---
_900428 Note La Mettrie (1709-1751), L'homme machine, 1748
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Joshua Lederberg To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" Subject: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment: Discussion of history of computing
X-Info: For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <431888990608.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 836925384.027
Sender: Joshua Lederberg Subject: CM> Origins of the word "ghost in the machine."
<<<<<
>Sarah Stein writes
> Can anyone tell me the origins and meaning of the phrase "ghost in the
machine," as well as some >history of its usage?
>>>>
This is the title of a book by Arthur Koestler, and refers to the
purported inadequacy of mechanistic theory to account for the
"soul". It is equivalent to Bergson's elan vital; and the counter-
statement is nowhere pressed more forcefully than by Francis Crick in
the title of his latest book.
Koestler is also using the phrase in the context of original sin,
if I may paraphrase, that man's evolutionary heritage ensures an
irreducible propensity for violence.
CN PR6021/K78/G427
Aa Koestler, Arthur
TI The ghost in the machine.
CL 384 p.
PP New York: Macmillan.
DA 1967.
CN BF311/C928
Aa Crick, Francis
TI The astonishing hypothesis: the scientific search for the soul.
CL 317 p.
PP New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
DA 1994.
I debated this with Koestler in:
177. Lederberg, J., 1970.
"Orthobiosis: The Perfection of Man" in Nobel Symposium XIV
The Place of Value in a World of Facts, held in Stockholm,
Sweden, 9/69 (Arne Tiselius and Sam Nilsson, eds.),
John Wiley & Sons, In., New York, p.29-58.
(and see a brief essay at tail of this message.
My library has another book with an equivalent title:
CN BF367/K8601
Aa Kosslyn, Stephen Michael
TI Ghosts in the mind's machine: creating and using images in the brain.
CL 249 p.
PP New York: W. W. Norton.
DA 1983.
-------------------
Weekly Column in Washington Post: Science and Man
Dec. 28, 1968
Joshua Lederberg
Man Can Be Called 'Machine' -- But a Most Complex One
.fi
It is easy to find deeply ambivalent feelings about
science among intellectuals (even including some scientists),
in Congress, among alienated youths and among bewildered
citizens. We live in a scientific age whose glories and
terrors are both credited to science. At this level, we can
hardly deny that our ever-growing scientific mastery over the
forces of nature imposes an almost unbearable responsibility
on political authority and on a democratic electorate to learn
about, think about, plan for and use these forces for real
human benefit.
In this climate, many people have become highly sensitized
to more ethereal questions that are raised by the scientific
study of man. One such question is the doctrine of mechanism.
Dr. D.E. Wooldridge, a well known physicist and systems
engineer and a successful industrialist -- formerly president
of TRW (Thompson-Ramo-Wooldridge) Inc. -- has written several
excellent syntheses of present day thought in biology. His
latest work, "Mechanical Man -- the Physical Basis of Intelligent
Life," concludes "that a single body of natural laws operating
on a single set of material particles completely accounts for
the origin and properties of living organisms. Accordingly,
man is essentially no more than a complex machine."
A few eccentrics aside, the whole community of contemporary
science shares the view that the same laws of nature apply to
nonliving and living matter alike. All of us who investigate
the chemistry and physics of living organisms pursue our work
as if organisms were complex machines, and we find man to
exhibit no tissues or functions that would except him from
this way of analyzing human nature.
Nevertheless, we are or should be careful to state just
what we mean before we assert that "man is a machine," and much
more so before using the phrase "merely a machine." The
statement that man is "a mere machine," or a mere anything,
is a needless irritant to precise communication between
scientists and laymen. (We might better proclaim that
"man is merely the most complex product of organic evolution
on earth, the only organism whose intelligence has evolved
to the point that his culture far transcends his biological
endowment.")
The "mere machine" phrase is usually a retort to the
claim that there are mysteries of human nature that are, in
principle, beyond the reach of scientific investigation.
Scientists would do better to save their breath quarreling
about what they can analyze in principle; in their own work,
they are mercilessly pragmatic about confining their
conclusions to what they can examine in practice.
There are, in fact, theoretical limits to scientific
analysis that may justify men in repudiating Dr. Wooldridge's
assertion that "the concept of the machine-like nature of man
is incompatible with a long-cherished belief in human uniqueness."
There is nothing "mere" about a machine as complex as a man;
the word "machine" is just a manner of speaking about the
scientist's faith in a universe ordered by natural law. That
faith was expressed most eloquently by the French philosopher
the Marquis de Laplace, who averred that, given complete
knowledge of the universe at one instant, the scientist could
in principle compute all of its future states in infinite
detail.
In practice, we must now remind ourselves, the scientist
and his computers are machines that occupy space and consume
energy. Dr. Rolf Landauer of IBM has pointed out that the
process of calculation itself soon reaches fundamental limits.
If the whole visible universe were one gigantic computer, made
of components at the theoretical lower limit of size and
energy consumption, it would still be insufficient for some
problems that are soluble "in principle."
Far short of the complexity represented by a human being,
some mere machines called computers nevertheless have already
reached the point where their actual behavior is predictable
only to a rough approximation, and we must be careful to
program internal checks to detect when these highly individualized
robots deviate from their intended instructions.
---
_900428 Note La Mettrie (1709-1751), L'homme machine, 1748
______________________________________________________________________
