[lit-ideas] Re: view of names, or in ginocchio da te

  • From: Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "Lit-Ideas@Freelists. Org" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2013 14:58:11 +0600

To my comment:

"there is no meaningful way of talking about machines thinking"

John responds:

"I am sure that there are any number of authors and fans of science fiction
with a different perspective. "

As I said, it is possible to imagine all sorts of things.

What would it mean to educate a computer? What would it mean to hold a
cellphone responsible for its actions? What would it mean to praise or
rebuke a car? Do any of these activities make sense? Not to me. I can
imagine a talking car, a heuristically programmed algorithmic computer
(HAL), or replicating 'computers' that take the form of bugs and possess a
shared consciousness through a subspace network. What I cannot do is
understand how any of these would fit into our understanding of the world
as we know it now. Not just in the sense of our scientific understanding of
the world, but how we understand ourselves in relationship to other
thinking beings.

Sincerely,

Phil Enns

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