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Article 3916 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR)
Subject: Re: Determinism precludes truth?
References: <1992Feb17.224820.7895@spss.com> <1992Feb20.231024.5959@norton.com>
Message-ID: <1992Feb21.092037.6074@a.cs.okstate.edu>
Summary: The problem of truth.
Organization: Oklahoma State University, Computer Science, Stillwater
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 92 09:20:37 GMT
Keywords: TRUTH truth
Lines: 117

In article <1992Feb20.231024.5959@norton.com> brian@norton.com (Brian Yoder) writes:
>markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
> 
>> 1. Human beliefs are so various, not to say rococo, that it would seem hard
>> to maintain that the most useful beliefs also tend to be true.
>
>If the truth is so useless, why bother studying philosophy?  Or science?  Or 
>anything else?  Go study you Bible or your Koran and you'll do no worse under 
>your conclusions.  Would you not say that yours is an anti-intellectual
>attitude?
  Would you say that yours was an anti-intellectual attitude?  Why mock
on Religion and priveledge philosophy? (as your rhetoric dictates.)
This seems harmless, this reference in rhetoric to the Bible or Koran,
it is so marginal, so minute, so easily overlooked--but in truth it
contains the very kernal of who you are and what you represent.  I know
your type, you praise philosophy, and even more science, because that's
where truth lies.  And so it is this truth, that you pursue so relentlessly,
make sure your virus checker finds all of the viruses, hope there aren't
any bugs in your algorhythm.  Truth lies in the machine, in the TRUE
in calculus, in the logic, its there just look for yourself.  Yes,
this is the statement you would make and so you propose  that we look
for this TRUTH this one TRUTH of logic and science and philosophy.  And
no wonder that you find it so easily in your AI researchers because your
AI researches only can see that TRUTH, the truth of the logic of the
science.  You can't find the truth of humanity, the things located in 
the BIBLE, in the KORAN, in MILAN KUNDERA, because those things, you think
aren't truth, no not at all.  
  Now I see it more clearly than ever, what you seek, along with your
lot, is a machine to find you TRUTH and to push down GOD and the 
rest of humanity--after all, they are misguided babling idiots like myself.
But until your research program discovers the grain of truth located
in any holy book, in any philosophy (including those religious ones,
or have you forgotten Acquinas, and Agustine, or is it that they
are old and don't consistute the philosophy you speak of), until
your research program can find truth in Nietzsche and Augustine, in
Heidegger and Aristotle, in Russell and Christianity--your research
program hasn't even gotten off of the ground.

  It is laziness, laziness to connect with humanity itself, laziness
to say that eternal "yes" when that "yes" presents itself.  Rather,
you would find yourself a machine to do it for you, rather you 
would replace your own mind(oh, no not yours because yours is to invent
the new mind, the new mind of the machine), or better, the mind of your
predeccesors, of your progeny so that all may bow down before a world
absent of God, of Humanity, and truth, but filled with TRUTH.  

  It is no surprise, then, that we should have you arguing semantics,
and arguing for a mind that knows nothing but TRUTH, and proposing
by means of this game a a machine that can "do it all--and cook breakfast"  
and once you have devalued yourself for this machine, once you have
said "AhA!" I have the magic formula, here is "INTELLIGENCE" once you
have found your intelligence only knows TRUTH and doesn't mention the
false, then you say "HERE IS THE REPLACEMENT, here is the perfection
of the human mind."  And at that point, you have left the mind behind
and all of humanity with it.  At this point you have a dull world
that knows nothing of truth and only of TRUTH.  But fortunantly for
you, you are not your progeny, and they, they will be the lazy ones 
who no longer have anything to do, they are the ones who will reap
the profits of your research programs who will then, more than you
ever did, turn to the ancients, look for humanity, starve for the
Bible, look for the Koran, search and search for the Myth of Sisyphus-
because the rock you create now will always come back down the hill.

Intelligence is not lookup speed or performace, it is not a huge
database system with a clever look-up algorhythm, it is not purely
mathematical, it is not outputs that look alot like what we might say-
intelligence is in YOU, it IS you and you have lost yourself so much
that you must look beyond yourself to find it--but it is in the looking
out there, in the looking in the machine, that you move further from 
it than you ever were before.  It is the intelligence that gets you
out there, it is the thing you are using when you look for it, it is 
the thing that produces this writing. 

And so you write in response to #3 the following:
>
>> 3. Experience is awfully careless about the details of belief.  A belief
>> that a certain swamp fosters malaria-carrying mosquitoes, and a belief that
>> the swamp is inhabited by demons, might be equally useful to the believer.
>
>Such a belief is part true part false.  The true part is that "Going into the
>swamp is unhealthy." the false part is that the reason for this is "demons".
>As a consequence of this false part of the belief, the believers are helpless
>to actually solve the problem (with insecticide or better drainage) and 
>thereby improve their lives, and make better use of the local real-estate.

  You have lost your humanity so much that you deny death.  You can only
admit that "going into the swamp is unhealthy" because it puts death from 
your mind, but you suggest that the "demons" can be solved.  Demons always
have, still today, and always will exist--except in your idea of human 
intelligence, the one you want to put on a computer.  One day, when you
are old and lying in your bed, you will think back and say "God, the
demons, they are near."  If you actually can bring yourself to this,
you have connected with humanity and you are true.  If you never can do
this, and if you do not understand my argumentation given above, then
you have denied your humanity and you will deny it(and its necessary
death) until the moment you die--and at last, you will arrive at the
very place that you fought during your whole life to avoid, you will arrive at
humanity although you will be dead.  But, perhaps, you are already.
>-- 
>-- Brian K. Yoder (brian@norton.com) - Q: What do you get when you cross     --
>-- Peter Norton Computing Group      -    Apple & IBM?                       --
>-- Symantec Corporation              - A: IBM.                               --
>--

BCnya,
  Charles O. Onstott, III

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Charles O. Onstott, III                  P.O. Box 2386
Undergraduate in Philosophy              Stillwater, Ok  74076
Oklahoma State University                onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu


"The most abstract system of philosophy is, in its method and purpose, 
nothing more than an extremely ingenious combination of natural sounds."
                                              -- Carl G. Jung
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