On 5/29/07, Samantha Atkins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
So your are happily provincial in this respect.
Addendum: I think it is my view that is unprovincial. We're programmed to think intelligence = humanlike, because for the last million years the only forms of general intelligence in existence have been human. So every generation that tries to imagine what the next generation's super-advanced machines will be like, comes up with - metal men. Oh, as time goes by the imagination gets more sophisticated, the whirrs and beeps get muted, the language is cloaked in jargon like "really powerful optimization process", but it's still metal men with the animal will to survival and power. Every generation does the same thing, no matter how often real progress fails to even start veering in that direction, because it's programmed into our psychology to think like that - yes, mine too, I spent years on those lines and I still look wistfully back at how much fun it was to seriously imagine creating a sentient mind from scratch; what cooler hack could there ever be? Meanwhile, real life progress continues to consist of ever more sophisticated boxes that process data according to keyboard input and mouse clicks. The lesson is that much can be achieved, provided we don't insist that it conform to our prior intuitions. But then, looking back at the alchemists and how almost against their will they discovered chemistry, the astrologers and how some of them managed to drag themselves kicking and screaming into astronomy... there's nothing new under the sun! ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604&user_secret=7d7fb4d8
