Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!wuarchive!texbell!bellcore!att!mtuxo!lzfme!jwi
From: jwi@lzfme.att.com (Jim Winer @ AT&T, Middletown, NJ)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Two Points.
Summary: Not sane, partially coherent, continuity questionable
Message-ID: <1564@lzfme.att.com>
Date: 16 Aug 89 13:30:20 GMT
References: <299@ucl-cs.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T, Lincroft NJ
Lines: 87

> Gordon writes:
>
> > Subject: Re: Adaptive vs. intelligent (was Re: "Intelligence")
> > Jim Winer ..!lzfme!jwi
> >
> > Apparently, you think that a system that learns unnecessary (and
> > possibly incorrect or un-useful) things is intelligent? What about
> > systems (like people on the radical left, right or center) who
> > "never stop learning" *incorrect* things? A better definition of an
> > intelligent system might be one that can cope with unanticipated
> > (or even random) situations.
> 
> I agree with the last statement. The politics of left and right has
> appeared exactly as above, be it Thatcher & Kinnock or Stallman & Apple,
> Should this posting be to talk.politics.theory?
> 
> Maybe. The left and the right are both intelligent people. One says
> freedom/wealth/choice is growing, the other says that it is diminishing.
> They both believe (much of) what they say is the truth. And is it the
> truth from where they sit, with statistics prove it.
> 
> > Subject: Re: Free will and responsibility.
> > Michael Ellis <ellis@chips2.sri.com>
> >
> > Lots of "ifs" there. First, and least important, is that the brain
> > isn't causally determined because of QM + Chaos theory (either one
> > in themselves is not sufficient): Brain state n+1 is provably not
> > "determined" by brain state n plus sense data. Also notice you
> > neglected to mention "output" or "control data".
> 
> So how do we stay sane/coherent? What gives us continuity of being?

Sane and coherent are not related as implied here.

Sane is a statistical or social concept meaning that a person who is
described as "sane" adheres to the socially acceptable mass
hallucination of reality while one who is "insane" cannot
distinguish the socially acceptable "reality" from some other
"personal reality" with antisocial or self-destructive consequences.
An examination of your (generic 8-) relatives will convince you that
we are not particularly sane. 

Coherency used in a social context as it is here seems to mean that
we have some consistancy of personality or behavior, and some sense
of continuity of identity. Again, an examination of your (generic
8-) relatives will probably show a consistancy of (usually *-)
unpleasant personality traits. This same examination is likely to
show very little consistancy of behavior. In the folklore, this form
of coherency is called "Do as I say, not as I do," and generally
induces either incoherent behavior or multiple disassociated
personality syndrome in observers.  

Continuity of being is a personal concept related to personal
observation of identity and the passage of time. It implies that we
have a personal past and a personal future, and that our personal
future is somehow an extension of our past personal experience. It
is almost always the case that our personal future *is* a direct
extension of our past in that as individuals (and as a race) we tend
to repeat past experiences rather than grow in new directions. A
simple example is the way each of us tends to select life partners
who match either a specific physical pattern, or a specific mental
pattern, or both. We always pick somebody who will play the same
*games* we played as a child with either our parents or our
contemporaries. This is easily observable in others when you see
someone who marries the same type of personality over and over
again, and ends in divorce each time for the same reasons. Another
example is the physically abused child who would never dream of
physically abusing their own child, so they mentally abuse the
child instead and are totally incapable of seeing their own behavior
as abusive since they are not "pounding on" the kid. The point is
simply that continuity of being is not a desirable situation. It is
much healthier for individuals and for society to learn to grow and
change and become something new and different and better than it is
to remain stable and static and continuous. If you can, you should
be proud to say: "I am an anomaly!" Unfortunately, it is likely to
make you unpopular, and some will consider you insane. But that's
where we started.

Jim Winer ..!lzfme!jwi (Please don't email, unable to reply.)

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Upuaut:	a wolf-headed Egyptian deity | Voodoo: the art of sticking ideas
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