Ex Machina
I went to see the new film Ex Machina, about whether a female robot will pass the Turing Test. It is never quite clear whether she is conscious in a human kind of way, even when she is flirting with her examiner. But the matter is put beyond doubt when she turns on her maker and stabs him to death, and then leaves the man she flirted with to die of starvation. It is the existence of evil that proves she is conscious–that she is human. Also, the film contains a nice exposition of Mary in her black and white room. All very philosophical.
Hi Prof McGinn,
I’m glad to see you’re blogging. I’ve been an Alicia Vikander film from A Royal Affair. Also good is her movie ‘Pure’. I’m really glad to see that she is tearing it up in the English speaking world and that she has 6 feature films set to come out in the next year or so. Anyway, back to you. I really enjoyed listening to your lectures that were available through some Teaching Company or some other company. In one of the lectures, I think it was the lecture on Truth, you said something along the lines of ‘You cannot will yourself into having a false belief’, for instance, if it is raining, you cannot will yourself into believing that it is not raining. I wanted to quote that in a work I’m writing but naturally I would prefer to quote something you’ve written down. Have you written something along those lines?
It’s not an idea of mine. Bernard Williams’ “Deciding to Believe” is a good essay on it.
how can you say that the existence of evil proves that she is conscious?
i dont know this movie.