[lit-ideas] Investigations online - amplification re PI
- From: "Adriano Palma" <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2012 18:35:17 +0200
** Low Priority **
** Reply Requested by 4/14/2012 (Saturday) **
dear Omar, the whole idea that a human (brain? mind? soul?) is a program
is alien to religious mentality. you see this (if you care) in the
equally obscure and senseless claim (made by many) that the "chinese
room" (in J. R. Searle experiment of 30 years ago) speak chinese and
doesn't "understand" chinese.
They never explained what it is that they (other humans) do when they
both speak and "understand" swedish or Venda...
I hope in this fateful night you'll recall we were slave
נכון
>>> Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> 14/04/2012 06:27 PM >>>
From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, April 14, 2012 6:13 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Philosophical Investigations online -
amplification re PI
From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
>*First, I think you are getting overly animated over this issue.
I think that your view of computers is an "overly animated" one. To say
"they were also taught the rules by someone at some point", where "also"
might seem to imply you think this is true of computers and "programs"
also, is to animate the inanimate computer, which is not taught but
programmed. The drift to, "In that sense, it might not be a
fundamentally different way of grasping" [that humans and computers
have], simply begs the question as to computers having any grasp; and
this cannot be inferred because 'the game of chess' pre-dates current
players and computers.
*Well, you seem to assume a priori that humans "grasp" in some
undefined way whatever they are taught whereas computers don't. There is
nothing particularly creative in the way a human novice learns the basic
rules of chess. He is told, or perhaps shown, that the Knight moves in
an L shape, and that is how it is. He is not to ask why it is so or
express an opinion about it, these are just the rules that have been
handed down over the centuries. Perhaps you might give some indication
as to in what special way you think a human "grasps" these rules that a
computer is incapable of.
O.K.
Please find our Email Disclaimer here: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/disclaimer/
Other related posts:
- » [lit-ideas] Investigations online - amplification re PI - Adriano Palma
