Aristotelianism, Platonism and Artificial Intelligence (Spanish below)
One of the themes hinted at in my last novel, “Waters of the Kalahari”, refers to the two ways of seeing, or interpreting, reality: the purely logical /materialistic which dominates scientific thinking and is based on known physical laws, and the intuitive /transcendental way of seeing, which accepts the idea of a nontangible dimension of reality. This dichotomy has been referred to, in some scholastic arenas, Aristotelian vs. Platonism. Plato suggested that the reality we perceive with our senses is an illusion and, in his famous allegory of the cave, men imprisoned there see nothing but the shadows of other men and objects projected on the walls of the cave in front of them. Aristotle begins the process of elimination of all “esoteric and mystical” traces of Platonism, accepting as true only that which can be explained by observation and proclaiming the intellect as the supreme authority. Continue reading
Rita Wirkala 