A Philosophical Analysis of Cognition in Artificial Intelligence: With an Emphasis on the Theory of the Union of the Intellect and the Intelligible in the Transcendent Philosophy
Subject Areas : Studies on Mulla Sadra and the Transcendent Philosophy
Narges Nazarnejad
1
,
Leila Mohsenian
2
*
1 - Associate Professor, Department of Islamic Philosophy and Wisdom, Faculty of Theology, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran
2 - Ph.D. Candidate in Transcendent Philosophy, Faculty of Theology, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran
Keywords: Union of the intellect and the intelligible, machine representation, Transcendent Philosophy, Cognition, artificial intelligence,
Abstract :
The present study seeks to open a new horizon for dialogue between Islamic philosophy and cognition-oriented technologies through an examination of the concept of cognition in two distinct contexts. The possibility of genuine cognition in artificial intelligence constitutes one of the most challenging questions at the intersection of the philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and modern technologies. Despite the remarkable progress of artificial intelligence systems in simulating cognitive behaviors, such as learning, decision-making, and language processing, there are still serious questions regarding the nature of the cognition attributed to such systems. Distinguishing between cognitive processes and cognition itself, this study presents a comparative analysis of human cognition and machine representation. It also evaluates the capacities and limitations of artificial cognition in light of the doctrine of the union of the intellect and the intelligible as developed in the Transcendent Philosophy. The findings indicate that, notwithstanding the extensive functional similarities between human beings and intelligent machines, these similarities remain confined to the behavioral level and do not extend to the ontological dimension of cognition, which is understood as a presential, intuitive affair grounded in the immateriality of the soul in the Transcendent Philosophy. This ontological analysis further demonstrates that the absence of such fundamental features as existential presence, self-awareness, intentionality, and lived experience prevents machine representations, at least in their current forms, from attaining the kind of knowledge characteristic of human cognition. The main contribution of this paper is the presentation of an interdisciplinary framework for reconceptualizing cognition in the age of artificial intelligence. While clarifying the essential and ontological differences between human beings and machines, this framework advances two prospective lines of inquiry: first, exploring the possibility of promoting the architecture of artificial intelligence inspired by the deeper and less accessible dimensions of human cognition; second, proposing the hypothesis of an ontological limitation, according to which the realization of certain levels of cognition is essentially impossible for non-biological systems.
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