Descartes's Dog

By Gareth Southwell

Animals feel pain – so much is obvious.
 

But René Descartes didn't think so.
 

In fact, the man who has been called the Father of Modern Philosophy thought there was no more to the yelps and cries of a suffering animal than the squeaks and groans of an unoiled hinge, and (for the purposes of science) he was even rumoured to have dissected living dogs and nailed cats to trees. For, he reasoned, we wouldn't worry about the "feelings" of a watch or a clock, no matter what noises it made.
 

Descartes's views on animals now seem callous and outdated, and we might readily consign them to the dustbin of the history of ideas – except for the fact that many people still share them. For curiously, Descartes's views have formed the basis for modern developments in computing and artificial intelligence – from which point of view, we are all just machines.
 

Written in an engaging and humorous style, this short book investigates the roots of this philosophy, exploring the connections between Descartes's view of animals, AI, and the persisting puzzle of consciousness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WoodPig Press
• Release date: Mar 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9781739300593

Book preview

Descartes's Dog

Descartes's Dog

Animals, Machines, and the Problem of Other Minds

Gareth Southwell

WoodPig Press

Contents

Descartes’s Dog

Dreams And Visions

The Wax

Deranged Springs

The Mechanical World

The Divine Horologist

Talking Clocks

Descartes’s Turing Test

Pain

Qualia

Spiritual Machines

Descartes's Dog

Further Reading

Please Leave a Review

About the Author

Endnotes

Descartes’s Dog

Gareth Southwell

First edition published by

Gareth Southwell, June 2020

This edition published by

WoodPig Press, March 2023

Copyright © 2023 Gareth Southwell

Cover design: Copyright © 2023 Gareth Southwell

ISBN (ebook): 978-1-7393005-9-3

Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders, or it has been assumed that material used is in the public domain. However, the publisher will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of quotations in a book review.

For any queries relating to any of the above, please contact the publisher:

www.woodpigpress.com

For the incorrigible Gracie

Descartes’s Dog

Some weeks ago, I trapped my dog’s tail in the door. Obviously, it wasn’t deliberate. Given the countless times I’ve shooed her out of the kitchen over the past eleven years (she must think her name is out!), I’m surprised it hasn’t happened before. Fellow beagle owners will empathise. She is the sort of creature for whom the word incorrigible was invented. At some point, toward the end of the noughties (in what other decade could she have been born?), she pilfered her first prize – some unattended bagel, some cheese too near the counter’s edge, or whatever it was – and since then has never looked back. Had she been one of Pavlov’s dogs, he wouldn’t have needed a bell. Even now, belying her greying muzzle, one hint of an unoiled hinge and she will erupt from the deepest snoring slumber and launch herself kitchen-wards, age-dimmed eyes newly bright in hope of another act of larceny. And it is during one such scramble that said tail-trapping occurs, causing her to set up such piteous complaint as to bring the whole street running.

Animals feel pain. You needn’t be any sort of scientist to confirm this hypothesis. Or at least, if you want to be sceptical about it, then we have as much reason to think that dogs feel pain, happiness, sadness, and a range of other human-like emotions and sensations, as we have to think that humans do. And what reason is that? In philosophy, this question is what is known as the problem of other minds. If I want to reassure myself (as philosophers apparently must) that I have internal states – feelings, desires, memories – then I need only look inside, where I can observe and experience those states firsthand. But what then about other people?