Introduction: On Having a Mind of Your Own

Since the French Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century there has been a growing belief that people are machines. In 1745, the French physician and philosopher La Mettrie published The Natural History of the Soul. This brought him such official censure that he exiled himself in Holland. Two years l...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inArtificial Intelligence and Creativity pp. 29 - 42
Main Author Dartnall, Terry
Format Book Chapter
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 1994
SeriesStudies in Cognitive Systems
Subjects
Accessible Structure
Cognitive Science
Conceptual Space
Creative Process
Declarative Knowledge
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Summary:Since the French Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century there has been a growing belief that people are machines. In 1745, the French physician and philosopher La Mettrie published The Natural History of the Soul. This brought him such official censure that he exiled himself in Holland. Two years later he published L’Homme Machine (Man A Machine), whose materialistic contents aroused even the liberal-minded Dutch to angry protest. Two hundred years ago, then, the belief that people are machines was bold and dangerous. Today it is so deeply rooted in our culture that we find it difficult to imagine what else people might be.
ISBN:9048144574
9789048144570
ISSN:0924-0780
DOI:10.1007/978-94-017-0793-0_2