Xref: utzoo comp.ai:2637 talk.philosophy.misc:1579 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ames!amdcad!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!gilbert From: gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.philosophy.misc Subject: Re: Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence Message-ID: <1888@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> Date: 16 Nov 88 09:54:56 GMT References: <484@soleil.UUCP> <1738@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> Reply-To: gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) Organization: Comp Sci, Glasgow Univ, Scotland Lines: 31 In article <1738@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> geb@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu (Gordon E. Banks) writes: >Says who? Can you prove this? All the evidence I know points >toward human beings as being machines. Can't know much then. See C18 enlightenment debate, Descartes, goals of encylopaedists, limitations of enlightenment rationality (unfortunately ossified in American political values). This is at least a 300 year old debate (not counting earlier millenium debate on free will, and still going strong). I cannot see how an educated (and intelligent :-)) person could possibly be so ignorant of the cultural context of mechanistic models of humans. Looking at other US intellectual traditions like functionalism and sociobiology, it's no surprise though. All machines are artefacts. Humans are not artefacts. Humans are not machines. Humanity and culture are inseparable. Techies are uncultured. Techies are inhuman. Don't flame me, it was only my deterministic logic which infered this :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) -- Gilbert Cockton, Department of Computing Science, The University, Glasgow gilbert@uk.ac.glasgow.cs !ukc!glasgow!gilbert