Common threads · 6 books
A philosophy course on rules, intelligence, embodiment, and responsibility. Separate arguments about understanding from predictions about future machines.
Books, curator notes, and what to read next.
Douglas R. Hofstadter
Follow the formal systems and self-reference puzzles. Keep the mathematical results separate from the analogies about minds.
Next: What Computers Can't Do
Hubert L. Dreyfus
Dreyfus challenges rule-based pictures of expertise. Ask how embodiment and background understanding bear on machine intelligence.
Next: The Rediscovery of the Mind
John R. Searle
Searle argues that subjective experience belongs in a natural account of the world. Compare his view with both dualism and reduction.
Next: Being There
Andy Clark
Clark treats bodies and surroundings as parts of intelligent activity. Look for cases that strain the brain-only picture.
Next: The Ethics of Information
Luciano Floridi
Floridi asks what responsibilities arise in an information environment. Compare his starting point with duties owed only to persons.
Next: Superintelligence
Nick Bostrom
Read the scenarios as conditional arguments. Identify the assumptions about capabilities, goals, and control behind each prediction.
Also includes The Rediscovery of the Mind
Move from the mind-body split to behavior, biology, neuroscience, and embodied thought. Compare what each explanation has to leave behind.
More Common threads paths
A reading route made on ReadPath.
Also includes Gödel, Escher, Bach
A practical route into arguments, formal logic, and inductive reasoning, ending with the places where logic meets language and self-reference.
