HOW TO BUILD THE AI

"Locomotive" - A Dialog on the Non-Duality of Matter and Energy

Two philosophers are at a train station arguing about the physical versus the spiritual. One philosopher claims everything is physical, while the other brings up example after example that he claims is not physical.

Granted the locomotive itself is physical, but what about the locomotive in motion? You can't seriously believe the properties of motion are entirely physical. Consider speed for example. It has no weight and no extention in space. You can't point to something and say "That is the locomotive's speed."

Your point is trivial. Speed is entirely made up of matter in motion. Are you saying motion isn't physical? Do you mean that kinetic energy is somehow non-physical and immaterial?

Maybe it's physical indeed, but not material. After all, energy is not some kind of particle that you can see or touch with your hand. It's ephemeral.

And yet you know that matter and energy are just two forms of the same thing. Einstein showed it quite convincingly with his mass-energy equivalence theory. You know, E=MC^2. So if your dualistic theory is just particles versus energy, that's a red herring. In fact, there's no such thing as particles at rest. Einstein taught us that too.

OK, but I'm not talking about energy per se; I'm talking about my subjective experience of the energy. When I see the train rushing by, I hear the sounds and feel the power of it.

Surely you admit that sound waves are physical movements of air particles. Light also is a particle-wave that strikes your retina. The moving locomotive causes the ground to vibrate, and you sense that in your body, but it's all just physical particles in motion.

You misunderstood me. I didn't mean the simple sensory impressions impinging on my body, but I was talking about my subjective experience, my emotional responses. The feeling of awe. The sense of adventure I get when viewing a great locomotive start out on its journey. Those are not physical things, but they're another kind of stuff altogether. They're essentially spiritual phenomena.

But why should there be something different in you? The world outside your body is made of particles in motion, but now you're suggesting there's a whole different nature of things going on inside your body. I say no, it's all one nature. Your very emotions are just like the speed of the locomotive itself. Emotions are nothing more than particles in motion, flowing all through your brain and body.

Still, there is my own self. Someone has to see the locomotive. There has to be some entity to hear the locomotive's sound.

Yes, I'm arguing that your very selfhood is again just particles in motion. You sense your own self in much the same way as you sense the moving locomotive. It's true you can't see or hear your selfhood, but even seeing and hearing happen via sensory nerve impulses in your brain. That's how you know yourself too, via brain impulses.

If there's nothing else besides particles in motion, that suggests all my pleasures and pains are just illusory. Do you claim that I don't feel what I feel? When I enjoy the beauty of a rose, do you think my enjoyment doesn't exist?

Certainly it exists. Don't be ridiculous. All I'm saying is that it consists of particles in motion. You are particles in motion, and your very real pains and pleasures are also particles in motion going all around in your brain and body. Your joys and sorrows, your challenges and triumphs - all of this is a result of particles in motion. There's nothing spiritual or ephemeral about it.