From: Olie L (neomorphy@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Jan 27 2006 - 04:33:38 MST
>From: Philip Goetz <philgoetz@gmail.com>
>Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 23:51:21 -0500
>
>I think the philosophy discussions usually have a lower signal/noise ratio.
Granted, yes. I would note that posts on philosophical matters often reveal
a... deficiency of expertise in the area.
Moreover, it seems many people's "auto-censorship levels" are set lower for
many philosophical matters. This is a pity.
Sometimes I wonder if the source of this is that certain elements confuse
"philosophy" with "opinion".
>
>Do people think SL4 would improve if we banned philosophy?
Ummm... does that mean barring discussion of papers by Drs Nick Bostrom and
James Hughes?
What about Kurt Godel? Douglas Hofstadter? Heck, I think it eliminates a
fair chunk of the SIAI reading list.
Admittedly, discussions about ontology tend to be pretty tedious. From what
I've seen (and I've read... ugh... a fair portion...ugh... of the backlog, I
mean, archive. Which is infuriating, because so many of the threads aren't
indexed properly), despite the number of clever people here, I don't think
this list has really added anything to the field.
>- How are we supposed to talk about what sort of goals and ethics we
>should develop an AI to have, so that it will be friendly, without
>delving into "mere philosophy"?
Given that Ethics is commonly considered a branch of philolosophy, this
seems like a tricky ask to me.
Similarly, meta-mathematics, logic, rationality, epistemology and semantics
are generally considered branches of philosophy.
Or should that be "merely philosophy"?
I think that the label implies something of the confusion listed above.
-- Olie
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