On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 10:16 AM, Telmo Menezes <[email protected]>wrote:
> I understand the point, I just find that there's something rather > puritanical about this view. Tweaking a computer program to perform a > task well is "hard" and "real work", laying in an isolation tank trying to > observe yourself from inside is silly. I enjoy both kinds of activities, by > the way :) You may personally enjoy both equally but historically only one sort of activity has proved useful and helped us understand how the universe works, while the other activity has not advanced one inch in thousands of years. > I am all for AI robots that behave like humans -- or better yet, do all > of the nasty work for us. Or that appear emotional enough to provide > companionship to lonely people. All of this is great. But why bet that we > solved the consciousness problem then? Because if you are a logical man then your doubts about the consciousness of a intelligent robot would be no greater than your doubts about the consciousness of your fellow intelligent human beings; and lets face it as a practical matter those doubts must be very very very very small. > I don't see how the two things are related. If you believe that intelligence and consciousness are unrelated then logically there is no alternative, you must believe that Charles Darwin was wrong. I don't think Charles Darwin was wrong, I think Darwin was the greatest scientist who ever lived AND the discoverer (along with Alfred Wallace) of the most important philosophical fact of all time. Philosophers haven't discovered anything new in philosophy in thousands of years, but lots of other people have and the number one place goes to Darwin. > The reason this is forced down our throats is that it is now blasphemy to > suggest that Science is not the be-all and end-all of > intelectual inquiry. At this point I'm not even talking about Science but logic and a distaste for cheerfully and strongly believing in 2 contradictory things. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
