On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 5:08 PM, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 10:16 AM, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> > 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.
The first activity offers public rewards, the second only offers private rewards. The rejection of private pursuits is precisely the root of puritanism. You freed yourself from the dogmas of christianity but not from its morality. >> > 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. >From a Bayesian standpoint, we are disagreeing on the value of a prior. This has nothing to do with logic, we just place different bets on an unknown. >> > 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. That doesn't follow. > I don't think Charles Darwin was wrong, Neither do I. > 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. I have little interest in popularity contests, sorry. >> > 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. I believe that human intelligence is a product of Darwinian evolution and I'm agnostic on consciousness. There is nothing contradictory about this, but I can't think of any further way to make my point. We'll have to disagree to disagree. Telmo. > 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
