Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!josh From: josh@topaz.rutgers.edu.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Goal of AI: where are we going? Message-ID: <15196@topaz.rutgers.edu> Date: Wed, 30-Sep-87 18:09:09 EDT Article-I.D.: topaz.15196 Posted: Wed Sep 30 18:09:09 1987 Date-Received: Fri, 2-Oct-87 05:27:54 EDT References: <178@usl> <549@csm9a.UUCP> <270@uwslh.UUCP> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 148 lishka@uwslh.UUCP (Christopher Lishka) writes: In article <549@csm9a.UUCP> bware@csm9a.UUCP (Bob Ware) writes: >>We all admit that the human mind is not flawless. Bias decisions... ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The expression "we all" does not apply to me, at very least. Some of us (at least myself)like to believe that the human mind should not be considered to be either flawed or flawless...it only "is." It seems to me that this simply means that you hold the words "flawed" and "flawless" to be meaningless. It is as if Bob Ware were saying that the human mind were not plegrontless. Only I don't see why I would get so upset if I saw people saying that minds are plegronted at best, even if I didn't understand what they meant by the term. I would instead make an effort to comprehend the concepts being used. >>...can be made due to emotional problems, for instance. ... Is this statement to be read as "emotional problems can cause bias decisions, which are flaws in the human mind?" If it does, then I heartily disagree, because I once again feel that emotional problems and/or bias decisions are not indicative of flaws in the human mind...see above for my reasons. I would say that an emotional *problem* is by definition a flaw. If you believe that Manson and Hitler and Caligula were not flawed, but that is just the "way they were", and there is no reason to prefer Thomas Aquinas over Lyndon LaRouche, then your own reasoning is distinctly flawed. To me that seems to be a very "Western" (and I am making a rather stereotyped remark here) method of thinking. As I have grown up with parents who have Buddhist values and beliefs, I think that making a value judgement such as "human minds are flawed because of..." should be indicated as such...there is no way to prove that sort of "fact." Can you say "evangelical fundamentalist mysticism"? Your Eastern values seem to be flavored by a strong Western intellectual aggressiveness, which seems contradictory. Twice the irony in a pound of holy calves liver. There are many other views of the mind out there, and I recommend looking into *all* Religious views as well as *all* Scientific views before even attempting a statement like the above (which would easily take more than a lifetime). What an easy way to sidestep doing any real thinking. Do you suggest that we should read all the religious writings having to do with angels before we attempt to build an airplane? Do you think that one must be an expert on faith healing and the casting out of demons before he is allowed to make a statement about this interesting mold that seems to kill bacteria? In Western thought it has been realized at long and arduous last that the appeal to authority is fallacious. Experiment works; the real world exists; objective standards can be applied. Even to people. >...be "fixed" in that regard. To see what I am referring to, read L Ron >Hubbard's book on "Dianetics". Experiment (the church of scientology) shows that Hubbards ideas in this regard are hogwash. Hubbard's phenomenon had much more to do with the charismatic religious leaders of the past, than the rational enlightenment of the future. To me this seems to be one of many problems in A.I.: the assumption that the human mind can be looked at as a machine, and can be analyzed as having flaws or not, and subsequently be fixed or not. Surely this is independent of the major thrust of AI, which is to build a machine that exhibits behaviors which, in a human, would be called intelligent. It is true that most AI researchers "believe that the mind is a machine", but it seems that the alternative is to suggest that human intelligence has a supernatural mechanism. That sort of thinking in my opinion belongs more in ones Personal Philosophy and probably should not be used in a "Scientific" (ugghh, another hard-to-pin-down word) argument, because it is damned hard to prove, if it is able to be proven at all. My personal philosophy *is* scientific, thank you, and it is an objectively better one than yours is. I feel that the mind just "is," and one cannot go around making value judgements on another's thoughts. Who gives anyone else the right to say a person's mind is "flawed?" Who gives me the right to say that 2+2=4 when you feel that it should be 5? If the Wisconsin State Legislature passed a law saying that it was 5, they would be wrong; if everybody in the world believed it was 5, they would be wrong; if God Himself claimed it was 5, He would be wrong. A comment: why don't A.I. "people" use the human mind as a model, for better or for worse, and not try to label it as "flawed" or "perfect?" In the first place, it is like saying that something big (like the U.S. Government) is "flawed;" this kind of thing can only be proven under *certain*conditions*, and is unlikely to hold for all possible "states" that the world can be in. But the U.S. Government IS flawed... In the second place, making that kind of judgement would seem to be fruitless given all that we *do*not* know about the human brain/mind/soul. Back in the middle ages, we didn't know much about the Black Plague, but it was obvious that someone who caught it became pretty flawed pretty fast. Furthermore, this small understanding was considered sufficient grounds to inflict the social snubs of not associating with such a person. It is incredibly arrogant to declare that we must not make any judgements until we know everything. The whole point of having a human mind rather than a rutabaga is that you *are* able to make judgements in the absence of complete information. Brains evolving in a natural setting have always had to make *life-and-death* decisions on the spur of the moment with whatever information was available. Is that large furry creature dangerous? You've never seen a grizzly bear before. No time to consult the views of all the world's ancient religions on the subject... I feel that we as humans just do not know diddley about the world around us, and to say it is flawed is a naive statement. To say that it is not flawed is just simply idiotic. If you apply enough sophistry you may manage to get the conversation to a level where the original statement is meaningless. For example, there are (or may be) no "flawed" atoms in a broken radio. But to change the level of discussion as a rhetorical device is tantamount to lying. To do it without realizing you are doing it is tantamount to gibberish. Sorry if the above offends anyone... It offends me greatly. The anti-scientific mentality is an emotional excuse used to avoid thinking clearly. It would be much more honest to say "I don't want to think, it's too hard work." Can't you see the contradiction involved in criticizing someone for exercising his judgement? The champions of irrationality, mysticism, and superstition have emotional problems which bias their cognitive processes. Their minds are flawed. --JoSH