Carne e bits: reflexões sobre a indiscernibilidade das fronteiras entre mentes e máquinas e os sistemas cognitivos híbridos

Abstract

The thesis main goal is to analyze the various forms of relationship between subjects and technical-objects, with emphasis on the use of digital computers and, particularly, softwares called smart agents. The thesis analyzes the space and its qualitative changes in actuality, from the concept of space as a human production, analyzing how the changes underway in the environment affect our subjectivities and, conversely, how we affect our environments. There are presented arguments about the possibilities of survival for the naked man in these new spaces, unless it is properly updated with the latest technology - sensory and motor prostheses. There is a discussion about the use of space as a part of the thought process and about the abstract space par excellence, the virtual worlds. From the discussions of space, the thesis proposes reflections about the body that will be included in these new spaces. There is presented a pattern for the use of artifacts by man and its effects on subjectivity. The body that is increasingly appropriating technical-objects, prosthetic body, establishing new relationships with technology and is a parabiotic system. Then, the thesis discusses the pattern applied to the use of intangible technical-objects (software). There are two conceptual proposals, about the possibility of considering the smart agents as one of the layers of dennett s model of consciousness (multiple drafts model). The second proposal, similar in approach, shows that smart agents can be considered as modules under the model of conscience of Fodor. The thesis brings thoughts about the possibility of considering smart agents as autonomous and independent the Artificial Intelligence. It presents a conceptual proposal, which is the definition of objective states that may not be objectively treated, as a possible root to the possibility of autonomy in computing machines. The conclusions of the thesis indicate a growing difficulty in discerning the boundaries between minds and digital machines, in a world of hybrids cognitive systems.