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From: Jim on 29 Apr 2010 14:28 Peter Ceresole <peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk> wrote: > James Jolley <jrjolley(a)me.com> wrote: > > > >> We can haz cake? > > > > > > Only if the box izz closed. > > > > And not if Cameron gets in. > > But in that case, *he* is inside, the particle decays and the poison gas > is released. > > My plan. Cunning. Jim -- "Microsoft admitted its Vista operating system was a 'less good product' in what IT experts have described as the most ambitious understatement since the captain of the Titanic reported some slightly damp tablecloths." http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/
From: James Jolley on 29 Apr 2010 15:02 On 2010-04-29 19:28:30 +0100, Bruce Horrocks <07.013(a)scorecrow.com> said: > On 29/04/2010 15:55, Richard Tobin wrote: >> In >> article<1jhpmt4.1cd3es96d1b5fN%real-not-anti-spam-address(a)apple-juice.co.uk>, D.M. >> >> Procida<real-not-anti-spam-address(a)apple-juice.co.uk> wrote: >> >>> And what Dijkstra appears to be saying is that definitions of words are >>> not very relevant here. >> >> That's not how I interpret it. But then I have never seen what context >> he wrote it in. >> >>> I presume - not ever having read Dijkstra - he means something like: >>> just as the question to be asked of a submarine is not "can it swim?", >>> but "are they any good in water?", so we should be asking different >>> questions about machine intelligence. >> >> No-one ever asks if submarines can swim. The fact that they do ask >> whether computers can think shows that they don't mean it in a >> narrow definitional sense. Dijkstra's comment reads to me as a >> pedantic refusal to engage with the question. > > I've always considered it a dig at the AI people. A submarine is a tool > for a job - there is no need to ask whether it can swim because any > answer one might come up with will be pretty much irrelevant to a > submarine's function. Likewise a computer: a computer plus a suitable > program is a tool for a job. No need to trouble yourself wondering > whether, in carrying out that job, the computer is thinking or not. > > At the time, AI programs were pretty primitive and still mired in the > "your fancy-schmancy AI program is still machine code at the end of the > day" debate so it has aged somewhat. But it's a good sound bite and > clearly makes people think still. Hense why I said "try telling the proponants of strong AI" that it's stupid.
From: Rowland McDonnell on 29 Apr 2010 15:33 Peter Ceresole <peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk> wrote: > James Jolley <jrjolley(a)me.com> wrote: > > > This may sound funny, but do you ever do anything else apart from argue > > the toss with your fake philosophical bollocks? Not that it's worth > > much, we can all philosophise until the cows come home but philosophy > > by definition is irrelevant. > > Why so aggressive, James? Why not question is aggressiveness when expressed at others? James likes being aggressive. I've got him killfiled because of that. Seems to me that for whatever reason, James is a very angry chap most of the time. I can feel his irritation feeding his anger. <shrug> James, you've got a problem in that line. If I were you, I'd be trying to sort it out. And I know about this sort of thing, what with me suffering something vaguely similar (but much much worse) myself. Don't `seek help' - there is none available, you've just got to fix yourself if you can. Good luck and I mean that. (folk here might have noticed that I've failed to sort myself out - that is true, but there you go: so I failed. And I have sought help for myself - there's nothing but abuse available from the NHS for people like me.) [snip] > And there really isn't anything the slightest bit 'fake' about it. if only because Daniele is in fact a real professional philosopher (with one of his hats on). Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Rowland McDonnell on 29 Apr 2010 15:39 Richard Tobin <richard(a)cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote: > D.M. Procida <real-not-anti-spam-address(a)apple-juice.co.uk> wrote: [snip] > >I presume - not ever having read Dijkstra - he means something like: > >just as the question to be asked of a submarine is not "can it swim?", > >but "are they any good in water?", so we should be asking different > >questions about machine intelligence. > > No-one ever asks if submarines can swim. 1) Oh yes they do. 2) Questions of this sort are useful for making points about and exploring issues relating to semantics. 3) Points about semantics are useful because we base all our verbal reasoning on semantics, so if yer semantics are wrong, yer thinking's wrong. > The fact that they do ask > whether computers can think shows that they don't mean it in a > narrow definitional sense. Erm, see above - it only shows that if you are sure that the words are used with /this/ meaning, and were meant to be interpreted /that/ way. I happen to think that the words do *NOT* show what you claim - but neither of us has any real hard evidence one way or another. This is all just hot air and hand-waving, all this, and any further discussion between you and me on that particular point would just be a gratutious increase in entropy. > Dijkstra's comment reads to me as a > pedantic refusal to engage with the question. It reads to me as an expression of irritation at idiots failing to understand the difference between interesting and non-interesting questions. Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Rowland McDonnell on 29 Apr 2010 15:48
Jim <jim(a)magrathea.plus.com> wrote: > Peter Ceresole <peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk> wrote: > > > James Jolley <jrjolley(a)me.com> wrote: > > > > > >> We can haz cake? > > > > > > > > Only if the box izz closed. > > > > > > And not if Cameron gets in. > > > > But in that case, *he* is inside, the particle decays and the poison gas > > is released. > > > > My plan. > > Cunning. Only if someone's executed a plan to ensure that the New Labour front bench goes the same way. Nice Dave is less of a problem than New Labour, which has caused huge social problems, restoring many of the inequities and injustices to society that successive governments from Atlee to Thatcher had steadily been ironing out. I despise what Bliar and Broon have done - now I understand the visceral loathing of Northerners towards Maggie's lot back in the 80s[1]. The social harm that Bliar and Broon have done to the society *I* inhabit is every bit as bad as what Maggie's lot did, except that the New Labour plan was just spite. btw, Schroedinger's cat is a silly thought experiment: the observer of the decay of the particle that decides whether or not to release the poison gas is the particle detector in the machinery that does the release. There is no need to invoke human observation: the observation which matters is the `observation' by `any part of the rest of the universe' of any hitherto-isolated quantum process. That is, once an isolated quantum process has interacted with `the rest of the universe', it's waveform's collapsed into something definite (if you think that Schroedinger's equation describes `reality', that is). Rowland. [1] I once stood in a Manchester pub, in 1985 or '86, where everyone else was chanting `Maggie Maggie Maggie Out Out Out'. Except for me, who was chanting `In In In'. No-one noticed, which disappointed me. I could run pretty well back then, and knock down almost anyone who tried to stop me running. It's called `rugby'... -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking |