On 8/8/2011 5:12 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Aug 8, 7:18 pm, meekerdb<meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 8/8/2011 1:33 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Aug 8, 2:21 pm, meekerdb<meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 8/8/2011 6:13 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
The machine doesn't care if it's right or wrong
But my thermostat cares whether it's hot or cold.
I see what you are saying, but no, it doesn't care. If it cared then
it would not have to be programmed or set, it would just try to keep
the temperature comfortable for itself.
Since you're programmed to keep yourself alive I guess that implies you
don't care whether you live or die.
We're not programmed to keep ourselves alive, we have to learn how to
do that ourselves.
Learning how and learning to want to are two different things.
There is some vestigial programming from thousands
of years of hominid evolution, but that programming is actually
hostile to our survival now and we are having to hack into our own
diet to keep it from making us obese. A thermostat doesn't do that.
If it's the dead of winter and
you don't have it set to heat, you will freeze to death and nobody
will pay the electric bill and the thermostat won't ever do anything
again. It has no capacity to understand what it is or what it's doing.
It has the capacity to understand what the temperature is and what it's
supposed to be. You're just showing your carbon racism because my
thermostat is made of glass and metal.
It has no understanding. The only point of understanding is that you
are able to use it to make choices. A thermostat is just an electric
circuit that opens or closes depending on whether or not a two
particular pieces of metal expand or contract enough to tip a mercury
switch one way or another. No choice is made. I'm assuming that you're
trolling me on this...you don't really believe that a thermostat
understands temperature right?
Just as much as I believe a neuron feels pain.
Brent
Craig
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