As a bioinformatics student working mostly with AI, I find myself thinking a lot about non-human thinking systems. It makes a lot of sense in a mind/body dualism school of thought to take a brain and put it into a computer. Actual research into the field of machine intelligence has found that, while neuromorphic AI (AI designed based on models of the human brain) is the place where the best progress has been made, models of the brain are only about a tenth as capable as an equally complex biological network. Additionally the constraints of these systems don’t behave in a way consistent with that of our subjective experience as thinking systems. The one most relevant to the conversation around phenomenology is that of the input requirements for neural networks. Even “generative” neural networks like StyleGANN (https://thispersondoesnotexist.com) use an input of random numbers generated by a computer to give an output. For a thinking human this tends to go against one’s general impression of how their own thought processes work, however phenomenology points out that we are constantly receiving input both from our bodies/senses, as well as in the form of the recursive input of our own focus.

Another thought I have had is whether or not animals have a sense of mind-body dualism. This is actually something that has been studied experimentally! The experiment generates involves a control of placing the animal in front of another member of its species and watching its reaction(s) followed by placing the animal in front of a mirror and watching its reactions. Some animals see their reflections and interpret them as another animal of the same species, unable to distinguish between reflections of the self and other individuals. Most animals just generally ignore their reflections. especially adults who have seen their own reflections in water or glass. Some animals show initial confusion followed by an understanding that the animal in the mirror is the body that is attached to the stream of thought in their head. Most of these animals will remember that experience too and will no longer show confusion in front of the mirror, showing that they have some persistent sense of self. It’s all fascinating and while I would love to write more about it I have to run this in since it’s getting late.