From deep thought to digital metaphysics

Barry Dainton

pp. 153-181

in: Nicholas Joll (ed), Philosophy and the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

Abstract

The Hitchhiker's Guide series contains a wealth of brilliant and arresting inventions, many of which are philosophically intriguing. The argument from the Babel fish to the non-existence of God might be thought comparable with many in the theological literature.¹ Then there is the Hooloovoo, a 'super-intelligent shade of blue" (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, chapter 4). Since intelligence is a remarkable and sophisticated phenomenon one might suppose that to possess intelligence a thing needs to possess inherent complexity — which a shade of blue manifestly lacks. But this reasoning is contestable. According to one venerable and still influential tradition, our own minds are housed in immaterial souls: things which lack internal complexity but not (presumably) intelligence.²