Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Irreducible Immateriality of Meaning and Its Crucial Role for Artificial, Human, and (Maybe) Non-human Intelligence

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Brain, Decision Making and Mental Health

Part of the book series: Integrated Science ((IS,volume 12))

  • 1035 Accesses

Summary

Are there good reasons to believe that meaning is not reducible to any material object? Some new arguments in favor are discussed here, which do not depend on any previous specific theory, but only on factual evidence: we may disagree on how to explain the immaterial nature of meaning and therefore also of the process of thinking, or even recognize that we cannot explain them at all, but this is not a good reason to accept a reductionist explanation if it has proved inadequate. First, I will present a new version of the classical Gödelian argument aimed at proving that meaning cannot be fully formalized and, therefore, the human mind is not a computer. Then, I will argue, also by means of a little experiment, that, in a sense, not even a computer is a computer, since what we call “computation” is such only for a mind able to understand its meaning, and not in itself. Finally, I will try to explain why, paradoxically, it is precisely thanks to the immaterial nature of meaning that a material object like a computer can imitate human intelligence, at least to some extent, and perhaps human intelligence could one day communicate with some form of non-human intelligence (if any), as shown by some recent studies carried out in the field of SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence program that is currently carried out all over the world by means of radio telescopes.

Graphical Abstract/Art Performance

iBrain.

The work is inspired by the Arc of a Scythe series by Neal Shusterman.

(Adapted with permission from the Association of Science and Art (ASA), Universal Scientific Education and Research Network (USERN); Painting by Saina Adiban Afkham).

So, should we assume, he said, two kinds of beings,

one visible, the other, instead, invisible?

Plato

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 189.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 249.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 249.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The field is so vast, indeed, that it is difficult to be absolutely certain. However, the paper was written and awarded the Oxford prize in 2012, then published in Spanish in [2] and in English in [3], to which I refer the reader for a complete discussion. Neither the Oxford jurors, nor the referees of Quaerentibus journal and Franco Angeli publisher (including Agazzi himself) ever raised any objection to its originality, and no similar argument is mentioned in the very reliable state-of-the-art reviews made by Berto [4] and Fano and Graziani [5], so I’m reasonably certain that it is truly original.

  2. 2.

    I mean, to analyze from a philosophical point of view, since from a technical point of view Gödel’s proof has been analyzed a lot of times.

  3. 3.

    Its leader is the world-renowned astrophysicist Marco Bersanelli, deputy principal investigator of the Planck satellite, which on 17 July 2018 released the most accurate map ever of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) produced by the Big Bang.

  4. 4.

    See www.meetingrimini.org; I strongly recommend to anybody to visit it at least once in your life: it’s something absolutely unique in the world.

  5. 5.

    I’m aware that the vast majority of contemporary philosophers of science have a different opinion, since very often, since Hanson, they have used precisely such images as evidence in favor of their theories on the intrinsic ambiguity of reality or, at least, of our knowledge. For an adequate critical discussion of this position, which nowadays is (unfortunately) predominant worldwide, see Agazzi [9] and Musso [10]. Here I can only reply, in a nutshell, that: (1) the almost inhuman precision achieved in many fields by modern science and its technological applications makes epistemic antirealism hardly credible; (2) the most basic principle of the scientific method is that theories are based on facts and not vice versa, and this is not going to change just because some philosophers think it should.

  6. 6.

    It is worth noting that a Turing machine would be a serious candidate to use my BCS code, since it works by moving back and forth, modifying it at each step, a potentially infinite string of symbols, which could be represented by colored squares without a significant loss of efficiency (also because a Turing machine already has a very low efficiency, although in principle it can do whatever an electronic computer can do, but in an enormously longer time).

  7. 7.

    However, just not to completely disappoint those who may be interested in this problem, I can say that in my opinion an explanation is possible, although none of the existing theories are completely adequate. In a nutshell, to be satisfactory a mind-body theory should: (a) be neither reductionist nor dualistic, clearly distinguishing material and immaterial factors without separating them; (b) not to focus only on consciousness, since perception also has an immaterial aspect, although I cannot demonstrate it here; (c) provide a suitable interpretation of quantum mechanics, since quantum indeterminism is necessary but not sufficient to account for the possibility of free will. I have pondered this problem practically all my life, and now I believe that this could be done by merging Aristotle’s hylomorphism with Nagel’s psychophysical monism [13] and something like Bohm’s pilot wave theory reinterpreted in the light of Feynman’s sum-over-paths approach (!). Not so easy, indeed, but I hope to be able to present my proposal in the next future, maybe (why not?) in another book of the Integrated Science series.

  8. 8.

    And space, of course. But it is easy to see that the same reasoning can also be made about it.

  9. 9.

    Once again, I won’t discuss here how this can happen: I just acknowledge that it is what happens.

  10. 10.

    Even with respect to how represent concepts, a slow but constant trend is clearly recognizable throughout human history, going from more intuitive but also more complex symbols towards less intuitive or even non-intuitive but simpler symbols, both in mathematics and in languages.

  11. 11.

    Recently, an interesting attempt to mathematically discuss this problem was made by the Italian physicist Tito Arecchi [15, 16], one of the best world experts on chaos, complexity and nonlinear phenomena. For a critical discussion see Musso [17].

  12. 12.

    This does not contradict what we said above, since here the physical output of computation is not produced by computation itself, but by the physical causal powers of the electrons (although their motion is determined by a structure which follows the logic of what we call “computation”: but, once again, this is caused by the physical causal powers of the material elements which the circuits are composed of, and not by logic itself).

  13. 13.

    SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, is a research program that tries to detect by means of radio telescopes possible artificial radio signals from other civilizations (if any). Its basic concepts were enunciated for the first time in 1959 by Cocconi and Morrison [42], while the first search was done in 1960 by Frank Drake, who later, in 1984, also founded the SETI Institute. The IAA SETI Committee, created in 1971, is an interdisciplinary group (of which I’m a member, too) that coordinates all the SETI programs active in the world.

  14. 14.

    Actually, I was also an invited speaker in the next Workshop, held in Paris on 18 March 2002 at the home of astronomer Roger Malina, where I was asked to give the introductory speech, summarizing the main results of the Toulouse Workshop.

  15. 15.

    For a short summary see Musso [54, 55], for a wider exposition see Musso [56]. It would really be a shame to scatter such a treasure. Precisely for this reason, in my University of Insubria we have recently created an international research center called InCosmiCon (Intelligence in the Cosmic Context) which will try, among other things, to resume and revive this kind of research. If anyone wants to participate, please contact me.

  16. 16.

    If, of course, we reject epistemic antirealism, as scientists usually do (see note 5).

References

  1. Reale G (1975) Storia della filosofia antica. Vita e Pensiero

    Google Scholar 

  2. Musso P (2013) Las matemáticas, Dios y la inmortalidad del alma. Quaerentibus 1(2):141–158

    Google Scholar 

  3. Musso P (2014) Maths, God and the immortality of the soul. In: Science, metaphysics, religion. Franco Angeli, pp 201–218

    Google Scholar 

  4. Berto F (2008) Tutti pazzi per Gödel! Laterza Agazzi E (1961) Introduzione ai problemi dell’assiomatica. Vita e Pensiero

    Google Scholar 

  5. Fano V, Graziani P (2013) Mechanical intelligence and Gödelian arguments. Epistemologia 36(2):207–231

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Gödel K (1931) Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme. Monatshefte für Mathematik und Physik 38:173–198

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Lucas JR (1961) Minds, machine and Gödel. Philosophy 36:112–127

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Agazzi E (1961) Introduzione ai problemi dell'assiomatica. Vita e Pensiero

    Google Scholar 

  9. Agazzi E (2014) Scientific objectivity and its contexts. Springer

    Book  Google Scholar 

  10. Musso P (2019) La scienza e l’idea di ragione (2nd ed. revised and extended). Mimesis

    Google Scholar 

  11. Searle J (1992) The rediscovery of the mind. MIT Press

    Book  Google Scholar 

  12. Liu C (2014) The three-body problem. Tor Books

    Google Scholar 

  13. Nagel T (2012) Mind and Cosmos. Oxford University Press

    Google Scholar 

  14. Einstein A (1934) The method of theoretical physics. Philos Sci 1(2):163–169

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Arecchi FT (2018) Cognition and reality. Substantia 2(1):41–50. https://doi.org/10.13128/Substantia-40

  16. Arecchi FT (2018) Cognizione e realtà. Firenze University Press

    Google Scholar 

  17. Musso P (2019) Cognizione e realtà di Fortunato Tito Arecchi. Il Nuovo Saggiatore 35(5–6):1–2. https://www.sif.it/riviste/sif/sag/recensioni/arecchi

  18. Dick S (1982) Plurality of worlds: the origins of extraterrestrial life debate from Democritus to Kant. Cambridge University Press

    Google Scholar 

  19. Crowe M (1986) The extraterrestrial life debate 1750–1900: the idea of a plurality of world from Kant to Lowell. Cambridge University Press

    Google Scholar 

  20. Clark D (2001) Kant’s aliens: the anthropology and its others. CR: New Centennial Rev 1(2):201–289

    Google Scholar 

  21. Dunér D, Parthemore J, Persson E, Holmberg G (2013) The history and philosophy of astrobiology: perspectives of the extraterrestrial life and the human mind. Cambridge Scholars Publishing

    Google Scholar 

  22. Szendy P (2013) Kant in the land of extraterrestrials: cosmopolitical philosofictions. Fordham University Press

    Google Scholar 

  23. Asla M (2016) Xenophilosophy and the knowledge of ourselves. Sci, Relig Cult 3(2):96–109

    Google Scholar 

  24. Asla M (2020) La comunicación con otras civilizaciones como experimento mental. In: La vida en el universo. Su origen, su naturaleza, su sentido—Actas del congreso conclusivo. Fondo Editorial UCSS, pp 189–207

    Google Scholar 

  25. Kant I (1755) Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels. In: Akademie Ausgabe I, pp 217–368

    Google Scholar 

  26. Kant I (1798) Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht. In: Akademie Ausgabe VII, pp 119–333

    Google Scholar 

  27. Kluckhon C (1953) Universal categories of culture. In: Anthropology today: an encyclopedic inventory. Chicago University Press, pp 507–523

    Google Scholar 

  28. Fox R (1971) The cultural animal. In: Eisenberg J, Dillon W (eds) Man and beast: comparative social behavior. Smithsonian Institution Press

    Google Scholar 

  29. Brown D (1991) Human universals. McGraw-Hill

    Google Scholar 

  30. Antweiler C (2016) Our common denominator: human universals revisited. Berghahn

    Google Scholar 

  31. Norenzayan A, Heine SJ (2005) Psychological universals: what are they and how can we know? Psychol Bull 131(5):763

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Tanzella-Nitti G (2008) Extraterrestrial life. Inters.org. https://doi.org/10.17421/2037-2329-2008-GT-1

  33. Antonites A (2013) The meaning and challenge of the quest for extraterrestrials. Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 39:71–91

    Google Scholar 

  34. Losch A, Krebs A (2015) Implications for the discovery of extraterrestrial life: a theological approach. Theol Sci 13(2):230–244

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Losch A (2016) Astrotheology: on exoplanets, Christian concerns, and human hopes. Zygon 51(2):405–413

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Nagel T (1989) The view from nowhere. Oxford University Press

    Google Scholar 

  37. Diederich J (2000) The convergence of intelligences. In: Lemarchand G, Meech K (eds) Bioastronomy ’99. A new era in the search for life in the Universe, Astronomical Society of the Pacific, pp 609–612

    Google Scholar 

  38. Ruse M (2005) Is rape wrong in Andromeda? In: The Darwinian paradigm: essays on its history, philosophy, and religious implications. Routledge, pp 209–241

    Google Scholar 

  39. Kracher A (2006) Meta-humans and metanoia: the moral dimension of extraterrestrials. Zygon 41(2):329–346

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Musso P (2009) Philosophical and religious implications of extraterrestrial intelligent life. In: Codignola L, Schrogl KU (eds) Humans in outer space—interdisciplinary Odysseys. Springer, pp 210–219

    Google Scholar 

  41. Kukla A (2010) Extraterrestrials: a philosophical perspective. Lexington Books

    Google Scholar 

  42. Cocconi G, Morrison P (1959) Searching for interstellar communication. Nature 4690(1959):844–846

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Nieman H, Nieman CW (1920) What shall we say to Mars? Sci Am 122(1920):298–312

    Google Scholar 

  44. Freudenthal H (1960) Lincos: design of a language for cosmic intercourse (Part I). North Holland

    Google Scholar 

  45. Hogben L (1961) Cosmical language. Nature 192(1961):826–827

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Arbib MA (1979) Minds and millennia: the psychology of interstellar communication. Cosmic Search, Summer 1979:25–48

    Google Scholar 

  47. Devito CL, Oeherle RT (1990) A language based on the fundamental facts of science. J Br Interplanet Soc 43(1990):561–568

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  48. Heidmann J (1993) A replay from earth: just send them the encyclopedia. Acta Astronaut 29(1993):233–235

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Tennant N (1993) The decoding problem: do we need to search for extraterrestrial intelligence in order to search for extraterrestrial intelligence? In: Kinsley S (ed) The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) in the optical spectrum. SPIE Proceedings, pp 1–9

    Google Scholar 

  50. Dutil Y, Dumas S (1999) Message to ET. Astron Now 6(1999):53–54

    Google Scholar 

  51. Diederich J, Wright S (2000) Symbol systems and pictorial representation. In: Lemarchand G, Meech K (eds) Bioastronomy ’99. A new era in the search for life in the universe, astronomical society of the Pacific, pp 619–622

    Google Scholar 

  52. Vakoch D (2000) Three-dimensional messages for interstellar communication. In: Lemarchand G, Meech K (eds) Bioastronomy ’99. A new era in the search for life in the universe. Astronomical society of the Pacific, pp 623–627

    Google Scholar 

  53. Lemarchand G (2000) Speculations on the first contact: encyclopedia Galactica or the music of the spheres? In: Tough A (ed) When SETI succeeds: the impact of high-information contact. Foundation for the Future, pp 153–163

    Google Scholar 

  54. Musso P (2011) A language based on analogy to communicate cultural concepts in SETI. Acta Astronaut 68(2011):489–499. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2010.04.005

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Musso P (2012) The problem of active SETI: an overview. Acta Astronaut 78(2012):43–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2011.12.019

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Musso P (2019) Una razón más grande. Fondo editorial UCSS

    Google Scholar 

  57. Vakoch D (2011) What does it mean to be human? Acta Astronautica 68(2011):445–450; Musso P (2020) La comunicación con otras civilizaciones como experimento real. In: La vida en el universo: su origen, su naturaleza, su sentido—actas del congreso conclusivo. Fondo Editorial UCSS, pp 209–226

    Google Scholar 

  58. Sagan C (1978) The quest for extraterrestrial intelligence. Smithsonian magazine may (1978), pp 1–8

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Sciences and Innovation for the Territory (DISUIT), University of Insubria, Via Sant’Abbondio 12, 22100, Como, Italy

    Paolo Musso

  2. Universidad Católica Sedes Sapientiae, Lima, Peru

    Paolo Musso

  3. Integrated Science Association (ISA), Universal Scientific Education and Research Network (USERN), Turin, Italy

    Paolo Musso

  4. European Academy of Sciences and Arts (EASA), Salzburg, Austria

    Paolo Musso

  5. SETI Permanent Study Group of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), Paris, France

    Paolo Musso

  6. InCosmiCon International Research Center, Como, Italy

    Paolo Musso

Authors
  1. Paolo Musso
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paolo Musso .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universal Scientific Education and Research Network (USERN), Stockholm, Sweden

    Nima Rezaei

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Musso, P. (2023). The Irreducible Immateriality of Meaning and Its Crucial Role for Artificial, Human, and (Maybe) Non-human Intelligence. In: Rezaei, N. (eds) Brain, Decision Making and Mental Health. Integrated Science, vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15959-6_25

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation