8:26 AM
Jam Jacobs
Coming to the origin of this comment, when one of the workers, who are making the analytical engine wanted to produce more such machines, then Babbage thwarted his attempts, emphasizing that the location of intelligence is in mind and not in crafting body.
So, What is Intelligence? We try to deduce that from the article in consideration by Simon Schaffer ,
He quotes that "the word intelligence refers both to signals received from without and to the capacity to register and interpret these signals".
Let's try to fit this definition of Schaffer in our argument now, take the example of a human brain, it has the capacity to register the signals but to interpret the stored signals we require help from mind ,and some of the reserves of the mind should have been from the experience the person has, which in-turn requires the skill of crafting body,in some cases.This is about the intelligence of humans.
Now, can we say anything about the 'intelligence' of machines ? Machines also both requires the craftiness of body and creativeness of mind of a human, to 'make' that machine to be able to perform its tasks it is assigned to do, and if there are any mistakes ,to 'improve' it further.
Well,calculating some tables and having some creative thoughts does not necessarily define mind as center of intelligence,since even Sir Thomas Alva Edison required many trials to produce a long-lasting electric bulb.So, we can see that the mere mental rigorous work failed to create the required end product of bulb but constant experience gained through repeated trials and by the craftiness of body to be able to craft tinier details, on collaboration with the mind is what that is able to produce the required end product.
So it can be said that the unification of mind and body stands as the location of intelligence. So here, in this case Edison is able to make his own bulb, But for complex designs,such as in the case of Charles Babbage,
the mind is of one person, and the crafting body is of another person.This is the start of conflict.
In this context we can say, the faculties of memory and foresight with which Babbage sought to endow the Analytical Engine characterize his self-presentation as the unique author of the machine. They embodied control over the engine while they disembodied skills and camouflaged the work force on which it depended.
Babbage says about his work,Difference Engine as -
'My right to dispose, as I will, of such inventions cannot be contested; it is more sacred in its nature than any hereditary or acquired property, for they are the absolute creations of my own mind'
The design of Analytical Engine is a very complex one, it requires a large amount of skill as Schaffer in his article quotes-
'in all those parts of the Machine where the nicest precision is required, the wheelwork only brings them by a first approximation (though a very nice one), to
their destined places: they are then settled into accurate adjustment by peculiar contrivances, which admit of no shake or latitude of any kind'
This problem of the geography of intelligence depended on the fetishisation of machines and the reification of the labour power exerted around them.
Under the new orthodoxies of political economy, the surplus value extracted from the machines was the product of the intelligence of capital made real in the force of steam-driven engines. On this showing, intelligence itself was easily identified with just those qualities displayed by manufacturing capital and the subordinate 'servants of the machine', notably foresight and vigilance. As we have seen, these were also the virtues which Babbage reckoned made his engines think. The aim of this polemic was to make the identity of intelligence and capitalist machine management self-evident.
Conclusion:
I end with the following quote:
"It should be borne in mind that the inventor of a machine and the maker of it have two distinct ends to obtain. The object of the first is to make the machine as
complete as possible. The object of the second-and we have no right to expect he will be influenced by any other feeling-is to gain as much as possible by making
the machine,and it is in his interest to make it as complicated as possible."
Thus ,certainly when speaking of two different persons, the location of Intelligence is confined to mind but not to the crafting body.
References:
Simon Schaffer's article on Babbage's Intelligence
By
G.Abhilash Roy
So, What is Intelligence? We try to deduce that from the article in consideration by Simon Schaffer ,
He quotes that "the word intelligence refers both to signals received from without and to the capacity to register and interpret these signals".
Let's try to fit this definition of Schaffer in our argument now, take the example of a human brain, it has the capacity to register the signals but to interpret the stored signals we require help from mind ,and some of the reserves of the mind should have been from the experience the person has, which in-turn requires the skill of crafting body,in some cases.This is about the intelligence of humans.
Now, can we say anything about the 'intelligence' of machines ? Machines also both requires the craftiness of body and creativeness of mind of a human, to 'make' that machine to be able to perform its tasks it is assigned to do, and if there are any mistakes ,to 'improve' it further.
Well,calculating some tables and having some creative thoughts does not necessarily define mind as center of intelligence,since even Sir Thomas Alva Edison required many trials to produce a long-lasting electric bulb.So, we can see that the mere mental rigorous work failed to create the required end product of bulb but constant experience gained through repeated trials and by the craftiness of body to be able to craft tinier details, on collaboration with the mind is what that is able to produce the required end product.
So it can be said that the unification of mind and body stands as the location of intelligence. So here, in this case Edison is able to make his own bulb, But for complex designs,such as in the case of Charles Babbage,
the mind is of one person, and the crafting body is of another person.This is the start of conflict.
In this context we can say, the faculties of memory and foresight with which Babbage sought to endow the Analytical Engine characterize his self-presentation as the unique author of the machine. They embodied control over the engine while they disembodied skills and camouflaged the work force on which it depended.
Babbage says about his work,Difference Engine as -
'My right to dispose, as I will, of such inventions cannot be contested; it is more sacred in its nature than any hereditary or acquired property, for they are the absolute creations of my own mind'
The design of Analytical Engine is a very complex one, it requires a large amount of skill as Schaffer in his article quotes-
'in all those parts of the Machine where the nicest precision is required, the wheelwork only brings them by a first approximation (though a very nice one), to
their destined places: they are then settled into accurate adjustment by peculiar contrivances, which admit of no shake or latitude of any kind'
This problem of the geography of intelligence depended on the fetishisation of machines and the reification of the labour power exerted around them.
Under the new orthodoxies of political economy, the surplus value extracted from the machines was the product of the intelligence of capital made real in the force of steam-driven engines. On this showing, intelligence itself was easily identified with just those qualities displayed by manufacturing capital and the subordinate 'servants of the machine', notably foresight and vigilance. As we have seen, these were also the virtues which Babbage reckoned made his engines think. The aim of this polemic was to make the identity of intelligence and capitalist machine management self-evident.
Conclusion:
I end with the following quote:
"It should be borne in mind that the inventor of a machine and the maker of it have two distinct ends to obtain. The object of the first is to make the machine as
complete as possible. The object of the second-and we have no right to expect he will be influenced by any other feeling-is to gain as much as possible by making
the machine,and it is in his interest to make it as complicated as possible."
Thus ,certainly when speaking of two different persons, the location of Intelligence is confined to mind but not to the crafting body.
References:
Simon Schaffer's article on Babbage's Intelligence
By
G.Abhilash Roy
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