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From: UUCJEFF@ECNCDC.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: THE MIND
Message-ID: <8710120559.AA17517@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Thu, 8-Oct-87 09:33:00 EDT
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Posted: Thu Oct  8 09:33:00 1987
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I read some of the MIND theories espoused in the Oct 2 list, and am
frankly disappointed.  All those debates are based on the Science vs
Mysticism debates that were going on 10 years ago when I was an undergrad.
I have since discarded both arguments into the /dev/null file.  Nonetheless
I would like to make a few comments.
1) It is wrong to assume emotion is a flaw of the mind, or even bring up
Manson and Hitler.  I would say absence of emotion is a flaw of the mind.
You want to talk about genius where mind and emotion are equal partners,
look at Ornette Coleman or John Coltrane.  Anyone who downgrades emotion
(or i should say "emotional intelligence") is committing suicide.
2) Even if you say a mind is flawed because it can't be "objective",
( I know some cyberneticians who were saying that we soon won't be
talking in terms of "objective" vs "subjective".  Those words will be
obsolete) let me ask a question.  Does anyone believe that as two
people become more informed about any subject, as their knowledge and
information increases that they will become in agreement?  I think the
answer is no, and not because the mind is flawed.
3) Some of you seem to be making science in general and AI in particular
a religion.  Especially with pie-in-the-sky projects of making computers
AI identical to human intelligence.  That strikes me as another immortality
project.   Let us say for the sake of argument that you could ( sometime in
the year 2525).  In that case the product will be necessarily flawed since
the human mind is flawed by your arguments.  So what have your gained.
4) In the area of art, I prefer so-called irrationality and surrealism.
it is more interesting.
5) AI should concern itself with solving problems, discovering new ways to
solve and conceptialize problems.  It is not as glamorous as making artificial
souls, but more practical and fruitfull.
Jeff "FREE" Beer, PAN recording artist