PSYC 4600 002 Lecture 4 Outline of Last Lecture I The Middle Ages a St Augustine of Hippo b Islam c Transmission of Ideas i The Crusades d St Thomas Aquinas e William Ockham f Development of Universes II The Renaissance a Rebirth b Printing c Science i Key figures 1 Nicolaus Copernicus 2 Giordauno Burno 3 Galileo Galieli 4 William Harvey 5 Issac Newton 6 Baruch Spinoza III Trends Outline of Current Lecture I The Defecating Duck and the Newfound wonders of Machines a Automata b Clock work Universe II Determinism and Realism III Automata people as machines a Steam Enginius IV Charles Babbage a His life and work b The Crackpot c Legacy V The Antikythera Machine Current Lecture These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute The Defecating Duck and the Glory of France o The Defecating Duck Would eat digest move head Completely mechanical creation One wing had over 400 parts Great wonder of its time Jacques de Vaucanson the duck s inventor charged the equivalent of a week s worth of wages just to see the duck o Newfound fascination with all machines o Used in science technology and entertainment Automata machines capable of performing feats with precision and regularity Nothing new Described by ancient Greeks and Arabs in manuscripts Chinese had devised automata to Pour tea Play musical instruments Sing music Dance Europeans were rediscovering the automata Example The Lady Musician Plays 5 songs Fingers open and close Appears to be breathing in time with the music The spirit of Mechanism In England and Western Europe mechanics put to daily use at all levels of society and for everything including entertainment The clockwork universe o Clock mother of all machines Available to all o Influenced all aspects of life o Prague astronomical clock a 600 year old clock that Zeitgeist of the 17th to 19th centuries o Mechanism The doctrine that natural processes are mechanically determined and capable of explanation by the laws of physics and chemistry o Universe a great machine The physical world is like a clock So what do clocks and clockwork toys have to do with psychology o The concept of mechanism developed in physics o The idea that the universe is composed of particles of matter o Think the overall item is the automata o Smaller pieces are the underlying causes These can be observed and experimented with This led to the need to develop precise measurements Without these instruments and measures to keep accurate time increments science could not advance Determinism and Reductionism o Determinism The doctrine that acts are determined by part events o Reductionism The doctrine that explains phenomena on one level such as complex ideas in terms of phenomena on another level such as simple ideas Automata people as machines o People are very complex automata o Humans thought to be ruled by mechanical laws o Driving force of zeitgeist in science and philosophy o Steam Enginius This mechanistic approach dominated the field for about 200 years Humans are simply more complicated clocks Harmony and order in the universe could be explained by a clock s regularity One theory was that the world was a giant clock that was set in motion Determinism Every act is determined by prior events Charles Babbage 1791 1871 o Fascinated by clocks and automata as a boy o Gifted in mathematics o Disappointed that he knew more than professors at Cambridge o Wanted to develop a machine that could perform mathematical operations and print out the results The Calculating Engine First computer Survives intact Could play checkers chess and other games Called the difference machine Calculator imitated human MENTAL actions Physical force mental effort Babbage as the programmer Heralded as an attempt to fabricate and artificial intelligence o Held parties for the social and intellectual elite to see his work o Had to use a model since the complete engine was too big o The birth of the Analytical engine a larger version of the calculating engine that would think Government would not pay for the engine o Babbage the Crackpot Became bitter and resentful After the death of his loyal supporter and unable to obtain funding for his machine Publically hated all Englishmen and organ grinders thought they were a menace and wrote letters to the newspaper about this crockpot o Babbage s legacy 1946 the fully automatic computer was developed at Harvard Realization of his dream 1991 the analytical engine was built and it worked flawlessly The Antikythera Machine o o o o Discovered off the coast of Antikythera Greek Island in 1900 Dated to be from 100 BCE Size of a modern laptop Contained 37 gears and could crank out the position of the moon sun and other planets