安全保障関連法案について―宮台真司

いつもながらとてもわかりやすい。こちら。

ちなみに、動画後半で引用されているＳｔａｒ　ａｎｄ　Ｓｔｒｉｐｅｓ記事はこちら。
「今回の安全保障関連法案のねらいは、日米関係の強化である」とはっきり書かれている。

文部科学省による人文系学問の斬り捨て

日本の文部科学省は、２０１５年６月８日付けで、公立大学の人文系学部に対して次のような要請を出した：

「教員養成系学部・大学院、人文社会科学系学部・大学院については、18歳人口の減少や人材需要、教育研究水準の確保、国立大学としての役割等を踏まえた組織見直し計画を策定し、組織の廃止や社会的要請の高い分野への転換に積極的に取り組むよう努めることとする」

これを受けて、日本学術会議はこの声明を発表した。（英語版はこちら）

文部科学省は公立大学からあらゆる人文系学問を排除しようとしている。海外メディアもこれには反応している。（たとえばこちら）　６０校ある公立大学のうち、すでに１７校が新規文系生徒の受け入れを取りやめたらしい。さらに９校は、生徒受け入れを全く行わないわけではなくても、極端に人文系を縮小する方針らしい。また、東京大学と京都大学は今のところこうした再編成に抵抗しているらしい。

日本学術会議の声明にも書いてあるように、いきなり人文系学問を斬り捨ててしまっては、人文系を学ぶ意義を感じている人々や研究者たちにとって大きな打撃になってしまうし、長期的に国の文化の衰退の原因にもなってしまうはず。しかし、現実的には、文科省の要請からわずか２ヶ月足らずで急速に人文系の縮小が進んでいる。

「１８歳人口の減少」がタテマエの一つに挙がっているが、ならばすべての学部を並行して見直すべきで、人文系だけを極端に縮小したり斬り捨てたりする理由にはならない。また、「人材需要」のタテマエも、はたして本当に人文系の需要がないのかがはっきりしない。日本全国の企業の人事部にアンケート調査をした上でこの結論に至ったのだろうか。論拠の詳細が気になる。

そもそも、文部科学省はなぜ人文系に対してこれほど攻撃的に動いたのだろうか。「人文系で得られる知識は、基礎教養にはなっても、役には立たない」という紋切り型の意見があるが、これは明らかに間違っている。理系学問の知識には、確かに、例えば文学で得る知識よりも即座に仕事に生かせるものもあるだろう。他方で、自分の分野の外では全く役に立たないという欠点も、理系の知識にはある。例えば、ナノテクノロジーを専攻した人は、コンピュータ関連の仕事に就けない限り、ナノテクノロジーについての知識を生かすことができない。対して、人文系の知識は応用範囲が広い。例えば、日本文学科を卒業した人は、教育や介護、翻訳や文章構成、ジャーナリズムなど、広い一般教養と文章力、分析力、感情を理解する力、柔軟性などを生かして突入できる仕事がたくさんある。見方によっては、狭い理系分野一本で卒業した人よりも「役に立つ人材」である。（これも蛇足だが、私は「人材」という言葉が大嫌い。）　よって、人文系が斬られているのは、そこで得られる知識が役に立たないからではない。

ハーヴェイやグレイバー、ジジェクなど、欧米の人文系学者が指摘しているように、政府にとって人文系学問は目の上のたんこぶなのである。資本主義や国家主義などに対して批判を声を挙げたり、今のシステムに代わるより良い社会制度を創造したり、資本の増幅と対立する価値観を肯定したりするのは、人文系の十八番である。もちろん、国民の豊かさを第一に考える政権にとっては、以上のような理由により、人文系はむしろ大いに歓迎すべきである。戦後のドイツが好例だ。人文系を斬り捨てようとする政権は、国家の力の増大を国民の豊かさを対立させようとする傾向がある―これがハーヴェイ他が繰り返し指摘している点だ。

要するに、安倍政権は公立大学の人文系教授が政権に対して批判的な考えを生徒に教えるのが怖いのだ。

では、政府によるこの斬り捨ては嘆くべき事件なのか。一方的にそうとは言い切れない。たしかに、人文系の縮小は、大学教育の理念に反するし、大学教育を重んじる国民にとっては大きな痛手である。他方で、政府のこの攻撃的な態度は、安倍政権が人文系を本当に恐れているのだということを強く示唆してもいる。つまり、人文系学問が本当に何か重要な役割を果たしうるということを示唆している。この役割を果たすことを阻止するためにこそ、政府は今回の要請を出したのだから。

こう考えると、人文系の研究者や教育者、生徒たちは、むしろ楽観的でいた方が良い。大学という場を失う代わりに、自分たちのしていることの意義を明確にすることができたのである。次の課題は二つあるだろう。一つ目は、長期的な課題だ。公立大学全てが再び人文系学問を組み込むことができるように、文科省にプレッシャーをかけていくべきだ。二つ目は、短期的な課題。こちらは、大学の外でできることを探すこと。例えば、長谷川宏氏の「赤門塾」や、中島義道氏の「哲学塾」のような例が浮かぶ。名古屋で流行っている「朝活」もこうした例に入るだろう。重要なのは、こうした活動を単なる「趣味」に終わらせないこと。大学に代わる運動として、大学の講義くらいの真剣さは保ちたい。以上。

Libet's Conscious Mental Field (CMF) Hypothesis and the Question of Consciousness in AI

In Mind Time, Benjamin Libet develops the "Conscious Mental Field" (CMF) hypothesis to account for the metaphysical nature of the mind. CMF postulates that the mind is a distinct fundamental feature, or "quintessence," of the world, and has a distinctive role to play in organizing other phenomena, including neuronal activities.

The motivation for proposing the CMF hypothesis comes from Libet's hypothesis concerning free will: "free will does not initiate a volitional process; but it can control the outcome by actively vetoing the volitional process and aborting the act itself, or allowing (or triggering) the act to occur" (p.143). The first part of this hypothesis is supported by an experimental result in which the "readiness potential," i.e. the electrical charge which precedes an act, is temporally prior to conscious volition. In other words, the order of the sequence is: (1) electrical charge for an act; (2) conscious sense of "I will do this"; (3) actual act. Therefore, the will cannot initiate an act. On the other hand, the actual performance of the act comes after volition. Therefore, it is plausible to think that volition has some influence on how the readiness potential is translated into physical action. Moreover, according to Libet, the volitional charge itself may be "uncaused" in the sense that no necessary neuronal correlate has so far been found to precede that sense. What, then, is volition? This leads to Libet's hypothesis that volition might be part of a "conscious mental field" (CMF), a quintessential feature of the world which cannot be explained by another ground.

Libet suggests an experiment which may confirm the CMF hypothesis. Such an experiment would first isolate a part of the brain which is thought to be correlated to the functions of the CMF. These functions include the act of unifying various sensations into one continuous experience. (Readers of Kant can easily see that the functions of the CMF can almost completely correspond to the functions of judgement in the Critique of Pure Reason.) Next, the subject will report on the experience that he or she is having - for example, a new visual sensation might be introduced, and the subject might be asked to report whether that sensation is successively integrated into his or her awareness. If yes, next the experimenter observes the parts of the brain outside the isolated "CMF cortex" and see if there is any distinctive feedback. If yes, then this would strongly support the CMF hypothesis, since here we see one part of the brain influencing another without any direct physical connectivity available.

Libet does realize that there are many technical challenges to be surmounted before such an experiment might successfully be performed. (I wonder whether such an experiment already has been performed - Libet's book was published in 2002, so it is quite possible.) In any case, what I want to focus on is the applicability of this line of thought to artificial intelligence.

In artificial intelligence, one central philosophical question is whether computers can have consciousness. If we define consciousness as Libet's CMF (which is another name for Kant's "transcendental unity of apperception") then it becomes possible to design a test for determining whether computers are conscious or not.

If computers are conscious, then in this context this means that computers have a CMF. This in turn means that one part of a computer is able to influence another part of the computer without any direct physical connectivity between the two parts. Therefore, if it is possible to design a computer which performs such a feat, then this would strongly suggest that that computer is in possession of a CMF, and thus of consciousness. Libet does not explore this possibility in Mind Time, but I think that it is a very fruitful way of thinking about the question of whether computers can have consciousness

Is the Hard Problem Really That Hard?

In the literature of the philosophy of mind, there is what writers refer to as the "hard problem." The premise of this problem is this: suppose that we explain all the functions and causes of human behavior and conscious states. There will still remain the issue of why the human being has to be conscious in order to perform these functions and be affected by these causes. The task of explaining the functions and causes is called the "soft problem." The task of explaining why there has to be consciousness in the first place is the "hard problem."

The Turing Test is a major influence behind the rise of the hard problem. In the Turing Test, whether the chat message is generated by a non-conscious computer or by a conscious human agent makes no difference. What the Turing Test shows is that one does not have to have consciousness in order to interact with another human being and convince the other that one is intelligent. (I ignore Searle's Chinese Room argument here as it only begs the question.)

Therefore, in order to tackle the hard problem, a good place to start is to ask whether the Turing Test really does work without consciousness. The answer must be immediately obvious: no, it doesn't. Sure, the system which produces the chat message does not have to have consciousness. However, the chat message is seen as the product of an intelligent being because the judge or subject has consciousness. This suggests that in the case of human intelligence, Berkeley's esse est percipi does hold. Intelligence can exist only in so far as it is for consciousness, or related essentially to consciousness.

The above criticism works against a position which maintains that intelligence-like behavior is in itself sufficient to count as intelligence, and so intelligence can exist without consciousness. However, the criticism does not yet hold against an extreme form of what philosophers call "physicalism." "Physicalism" states that a complete account of "physical facts" is at the same time a complete account of all the properties which exist in the world. Consciousness is just one way in which a property of the world becomes manifest. Therefore, things can be the way they are without necessarily being manifested as consciousness. The hard problem raises its head again here from a new angle.

In Mind Time, Benjamin Libet cautions that physicalism is only a hypothesis. Here I agree with Libet. Physicalism arbitrarily introduces the old-fashioned distinction between appearance and reality, and ascribes reality only to a certain range of phenomena. This is arbitrary, for neither experimental evidence nor the concepts of the "hard sciences" give support to this claim. Here, it is also good to remember that even physicists do not believe that only those things studied in physics really exist and everything else is just a manifestation of it. When physicists such as, say, Richard Feynman, speaks of chemistry as being "reducible" to physics, he is only talking about the possibility of translating the accounts given in chemistry into accounts given in physics. Such a translation already presupposes that both the chemical and the physical exist. Likewise, an organism is not metaphysically "reducible" to chemical phenomena. Biology does rely on chemistry extensively, but again, the way in which this reliance is determined depends on biological facts, not chemical facts. The same can be said of consciousness and the mind. The action of the mind can be translated into a series of biological facts, but the biological account cannot account for why such facts transpire the way it does specifically. For example, the secretion and reception of oxytocin might be one way of describing the phenomenon of breast-feeding, but without the goal of feeding the infant, the purely chemical and biological account cannot explain why there is a link between oxytocin and breast-feeding in the first place.

In my view, the appeal of physicalism comes from the philosophers' mistaken overestimation of what physics, chemistry, and biology can offer. In so far as actuality is concerned, there is no reason to believe that such a thing as a "complete account of the world" which leaves out consciousness is even possible.

If we accept that physicalism is at best only a thought experiment, then the hard problem vanishes. This is not to say that physicalism is a worthless thought experiment. Quite the contrary, I would argue that it is a necessary thought experiment for getting clear on the distinction between consciousness and the lower natural phenomena. The mistake of physicalism is that it assume that a complete "physical" account of the world is actually achievable even if consciousness exists.

Björk

Japanese writer Akira Asada wrote and said repeatedly that pure music reaches a certain limit with John Cage. This is parallel to his other assertions, such as that literature reaches a limit with Joyce, dance reaches a limit with Forsythe, or film with Godard. Therefore, when talking about artists coming after these figures in each of their respective genres, Asada praises those aspects of their work which relate to pleasure, but not to their contribution to the historical progress of fine art.

In an overwhelming majority of cases, Asada's stance seems to be the most fruitful. It helps one avoid the trap of assuming that what comes later is necessarily more progressive.

In a very important sense, at least for me personally, it is largely thanks to Asada that Björk's music comes as such a shock. I am not an expert on contemporary music, so I cannot say this for sure, but it seems quite plausible to interpret Björk as someone who (indirectly and accidentally) successfully took the baton from Cage and ran ahead.

The basic dilemma that plagued Cage is the fact that any sound can be listened to as music if the listener puts him or her self into the right kind of situation. Cage struggled to explore the various ways in which people can be put into such situations. Björk also begins from this dilemma: this is how one can listen to the songs of KUKL. They are not really songs, but rather a kind of ritual in which Björk and the others try to elevate sound to music.

The next step comes with the Sugarcubes and the early Björk up to Post. Einar and Björk both say that the Sugarcubes was meant as a joke. It is a very well-done joke, a pleasant joke. It makes fun of much of what goes by the name of pop music - from rock and role to blues and country to jazz. Making fun of genres can be easy; making fun of them seriously and well is difficult. Björk continues with this parodying style in Debut and Post too - e.g. "I Go Humble" is an ambiguous homage to Michael Jackson's "Bad" (the contrast between "I'm bad!" and "I go humble!") The trace of this homage-parody mood stays with songs in Homogenic too - "All is Full of Love" is an answer to John Lennon's "All You Need is Love." Whereas the listener to Lennon's song is in need of love, listeners to Björk's song is called to find love that is already there.

The third big step is when the parody mode is replaced by a fusion of Cage-like experiments and pop. This is what I absolute love about Björk's music, that it fuses experiment with pop. The element of pop is the element of universality. Unusual time signatures and beats in Homogenic, domestic sounds and complex beats in Vespertine, the human voice as such in Médúlla, the patterns of nature in Biophilia, all are elevated not only to music, but to pop music.

As only a Dubliner would really understand the finer details of Ulysses, so it seems that only an Icelander would really get the subtle humor of Björk's music, but nonetheless, as an outsider, instead of reading into the music any excessive speculation of mine, I can simply sit back and listen and feel thoroughly replenished.