Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!amdahl!pyramid!prls!philabs!gcm!dc
From: dc@gcm (Dave Caswell)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: The future of AI
Message-ID: <533@white.gcm>
Date: 15 Jun 88 16:22:52 GMT
References: <48.22A3B84F@isishq.UUCP> <4347@killer.UUCP> <672@auvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: dc@white.UUCP (Dave Caswell)
Organization: Greenwich Capital Markets, Greenwich, CT
Lines: 60

In article <672@auvax.UUCP> charlesv@auvax.UUCP (Charles van Duren) writes:

.Where to begin. Your posting leaves me with the desire to write tomes on
.the incredible myopia of (much) of the AI community, and of practically
.all of the advocates of the scientific method. The scientific method is
.a religion. It is circular to argue that the scientific method has more
.merit or truth or whatever because its effectiveness can be demonstrated
.(by the scientific method, of course). Don't mistake me. I am not denying
.the value of the scientific method. All I am saying is that, as a method,
.it is only a few centuries old, so let us keep it in perspective.


.Attempts, with indifferent success. Let's not get carried away. Sane persons
.will integrate the knowledge gained from these endeavours in their world-view,
.but a pinch of salt is recommended.

How does one treat knowledge with a pinch of salt?  Do you sometimes ignore
it, sometimes follow it, or what?  Moreover reality does not care whether
you have integrated its facts into your worldview or not; they will still
go on being facts.  It isn't something I would even care to argue; the 
world makes it clear.  And then you go on to say that your whole point
is that the scientific method is relatively new;  what's the point, finally
a partially defensible position to fall back on?



.> Here is where I become certain that you are advocating a certain set of
.> religious beliefs (commonly called "New Age", I believe). As I said before,
                                       ^^^^^^^
.> the whole underpinning of science is that the world can be explained. That
.> approach has yielded every scientific advance in the world today, from the
.> wheat upon your table (a scientifically-bread hybrid, high yield), to the car
.> you drive to work. 

.These are _physical_ phenomena. Also, the wheel was invented sometime before
.the scientific method, so don't generalize about the scientific method.

Do you mean to imply that no one did science or followed the scientific
method until one specific date in the past?  Did rocks also often float
upwards until the theory of gravity was formalized; what an absurd thought.
There is a difference between an invention and a discovery.  Wheels and
science aren't inventions in the same sense.


If you weren't sure that this was merely some religious dogma(though
I'm not sure that New Age describes it) you can be sure now.
The search for what?  What are the tools for the search?

.futures. If you believe that we are mere machines, or that our behaviour
.can be explained in mechanistic terms, I will fight you on the beaches, etc.,
.because this is an unacceptable invasion of my very human life.

But don't you realize that beliving that people are articles of faith is 
having a much lower opinion of them.  People are thinking, reasoning beings
and to degrade reason is to degrade reason and knowledge is to degrade
humanity itself.

-- 
Dave Caswell
Greenwich Capital Markets                             uunet!philabs!gcm!dc
If it could mean something, I wouldn't have posted about it! -- Brian Case