Re: [sl4] Re: goals of AI

From: John K Clark (johnkclark@fastmail.fm)
Date: Mon Nov 30 2009 - 14:35:04 MST


On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 "Matt Paul" <lizardblue@gmail.com> said:

> You are stuck on this damn soul thing. It's aggravating.

The truth can be painful.

> I don't know why you insist that everyone is stuck in some sort of
> medival way of thinking.

You're talking about something that the scientific method cannot detect
that is nevertheless of enormous importance, just like the soul. And I
don't care if these vital signals that make us be us come from heaven or
the eleventh dimension the idea is indistinguishable from a soul. And
the worse crime of all is that your idea explains absolutely NOTHING,
not one goddamn thing, it just pushes the problem upstairs just as the
soul idea does. A dimension is just another direction, how in hell can a
direction that I happen to have not experienced before explain the
mysteries of existence?

> If everything you can't currently measure or detect is just a soul,
> then why pursue science at all.

You are postulating something that cannot be measure or detected to
explain something that we're already doing a fine job of explaining
without it, and to add insult to injury your addition doesn't explain
anything, you just add another useless layer of complexity.

If you are a fan of the soul let me offer you an alternative,
information is as close as you can get to the traditional concept of the
soul and still remain within the scientific method. Consider the
similarities:

The soul is non material and so is information. It's difficult to pin
down a unique physical location for the soul, and the same is true for
information. The soul is the essential, must have, part of
consciousness, exactly the same situation is true for information. The
soul is immortal and so, potentially, is information.

But there are also important differences too.

A soul is unique but information can be duplicated. The soul is and will
always remain unfathomable, but information is understandable, in fact,
information is the ONLY thing that is understandable. Information
unambiguously exists, I don't think anyone would deny that, but if the
soul exists it will never be proven scientifically.

> I think you are pretty damn closed minded

It's good to be open minded, but not so open all your brains fall out.

 John K Clark

-- 
  John K Clark
  johnkclark@fastmail.fm
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