OK, you don't like philosophy of mind. You have a lot of company. Stay out the way of them as does, though. You will not score any points or change any minds by sneering at the activity as childish blather. Your disapproval is noted. Now -- as Jen said, this is meant in the nicest possible way -- fuck off. jks
--- Michael Dawson -PSU <mdawson at pdx.edu> wrote:
> > The point of the analogy -- this is what
> > Michael D doesn't see -- is what it tells us about
> > _us_.
>
> I see the attempted point of the analogy all right.
> I simply disagree that
> there's anything profound in it. Yes, any creature
> that appears before us
> and demonstrates the ability to empathize and feel
> and understand and
> intentionally alter its place in the world deserves
> an extension of human
> rights.
>
> Why appreciating this requires comparison to a
> machine or science fiction or
> a computer -- that, I fail to see. It's ethically
> imminent in humanity
> itself, which is the closest thing to a miracle I've
> ever seen or heard
> about, and this point has been recognized and
> recognizable for much longer
> than there have been so-called AI computer devices,
> which seem to me to be
> dragging otherwise open and productive minds into
> twisted fits of commodity
> fetishism. Nothing that's ever come out of a
> computer is anything but a
> simple additive result of what various people have
> put into them. Speculate
> about that changing if you want to, but I saw
> "Herbie the Lovebug" when I
> was 5. Twaddle in, twaddle out.
>
> Meanwhile, if trying to concoct deep new wisdom from
> thinking about
> computers is what a person does for play, I'd say
> that person needs to learn
> how to play for real.
>
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