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From: Jaimie Vandenbergh on 29 Apr 2010 17:11 On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:52:35 +0100, jim(a)magrathea.plus.com (Jim) wrote: >Jim <jim(a)magrathea.plus.com> wrote: > >> > *cheers* *party poppers* >> > >> >:-) >> >> We can haz cake? > >[waits in vain] > >I confess to disappointment. Not ONE of you tried to resurrect the "the >cake is a lie!" meme. I mean, ok, it's been a couple of years, but even >so. > >Roll on Portal 2... Sometime later than June.... But! Steam on the Mac any day now, including Portal, Half-Life 2 and lots of other Valve goodness. Cheers - Jaimie -- haiku are easy all you do is stop at the seventeenth syllab
From: D.M. Procida on 29 Apr 2010 17:13 James Jolley <jrjolley(a)me.com> wrote: > All he ever seems to do is act clever on here. It's not an act. Daniele
From: Graeme on 29 Apr 2010 17:01 In message <1jhpzwb.18ll2v67admslN%me9(a)privacy.net> me9(a)privacy.net (Bella Jones) wrote: > 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? > > > > And I'd say that if life is about having an interesting and amusing time > > (and what else could it possibly be about?) then philosophy asks the > > right questions, and is more fun than almost anything else. > > > > And there really isn't anything the slightest bit 'fake' about it. > > Come on everyone! Hush now! > > All together now: > > Happy birthday to you > Happy birthday to you > Happy birthday dear Zoara > Happy birthday to you > > *cheers* *party poppers* > > :-) > > OK Who booked the gorillagram? -- Graeme Wall My genealogy website <www.greywall.demon.co.uk/genealogy/>
From: Richard Tobin on 29 Apr 2010 17:20 In article <1jhpxfv.14jvskl1fkags5N%real-not-anti-spam-address(a)apple-juice.co.uk>, D.M. Procida <real-not-anti-spam-address(a)apple-juice.co.uk> wrote: >> 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. >Refusal, yes - but why pedantic? It's a slightly arch way of suggesting >that asking whether computers can think is simply the wrong question. *If* people were really asking the wrong question, I would agree. But in my experience of AI (which probably doesn't go back to whenever Dijkstra made his comment), they aren't. When people ask "can computers think" they are at worst phrasing the question poorly. I have seen (amd, er, participated in) innumerable interminable and futile arguments about AI. But I don't recall any of them being futile because "can computers think" was the wrong question. The natural response to that question would be "what do you mean by 'think'", which is pretty much the heart of the matter. So it's a question which leads fairly directly to the interesting issues. -- Richard
From: James Jolley on 29 Apr 2010 17:24
On 2010-04-29 22:20:51 +0100, richard(a)cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) said: > In article > <1jhpxfv.14jvskl1fkags5N%real-not-anti-spam-address(a)apple-juice.co.uk>, > D.M. Procida <real-not-anti-spam-address(a)apple-juice.co.uk> wrote: > >>> 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. > >> Refusal, yes - but why pedantic? It's a slightly arch way of suggesting >> that asking whether computers can think is simply the wrong question. > > *If* people were really asking the wrong question, I would agree. But > in my experience of AI (which probably doesn't go back to whenever > Dijkstra made his comment), they aren't. When people ask "can > computers think" they are at worst phrasing the question poorly. > > I have seen (amd, er, participated in) innumerable interminable and > futile arguments about AI. But I don't recall any of them being > futile because "can computers think" was the wrong question. The > natural response to that question would be "what do you mean by > 'think'", which is pretty much the heart of the matter. So it's a > question which leads fairly directly to the interesting issues. > > -- Richard Well put. I have an interest in AI myself, purely because I actually think in the long term it will offer the most practical use as aids for the blind or disabled. Even limited AI, something simple enough to perform tasks to an acceptable standard, accounting for accidents and such would be good enough for me. Think Robotic house made, but with the facility to assist rather than take over. |