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Article 5823 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: NI failure
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Date: 21 May 92 18:43:19 GMT
References: <1992May13.155329.21787@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <78053@netnews.upenn.edu> <1992May15.140530.1631@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <78312@netnews.upenn.edu> <1992May19.203844.19023@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
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In-reply-to: pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)

In article <1992May19.203844.19023@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>, pindor@gpu (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>Are you saying that different flavours of Christianity are unlike?

Well, yes.  Sometimes very unlike.  Fuzzy sets are not easy to deal with.

>								    I even 
>count Judaic and Christian religions as one since they have a common root (and 
>common moral code - Ten Commandments).

This pretty much ends the discussion.  Now that I know your metric is not
based on the religion itself but a particular abstraction with historical
weighting, it's pretty clear you are just propagandizing.

>I agree that those 'Millions and millions and millions' would not make many
>headlines. But how do you know they are (were) there? Who counted them?

If you've never studied sociology/psychology, then I'm not going to explain
it to you.

>Firstly, I have not had any 'unhappy run-ins with noisy minorities' and in any
>case I am trying to look at trends in a society independent of my personal
>preferences (or perhaps unhappy experiences).

I apologize.  I meant `run-ins' in the abstract sense--I assume that just
reading in newspapers about people actively trying to set the clock back
bothers you as it bothers me.

>					       Do you deny that the trends I
>point to above are there?

Not in the least.  I just deny your approach to counting fuzzy sets--pick
a single feature and declare it there--in 0-1 language no less--if you find
it somewhere.

>			   Your dismissing them as 'irrelevant' is no more 
>justified than my claim that they mean something (in the context of our
>discussion).

They are irrelevant in that the particulars are not what I'm talking about.
Just your automatic lumping algorithm.

>Secondly, where do you get this me 'taking a broad propagandistic swipe'?
>I do not adhere to _any_ ideology (unless you say that everyone has some
>ideology) so why should I try to 'propgandize' you or anyone else?

Basically, religion is a broad and complicated phenomenon.  Your lumping
betrays a refusal to comprehend it.  Your choice of obnoxious conclusion
to draw from your lumping is no better than propaganda. 

Here's an example of subtlety.  You mentioned religions that practiced
human sacrifice as ones clearly placing no value on human life.  But this
evaluation ignores what the people thought and believed at the time.  If
they had sincere convictions regarding an afterlife or spirit world, and
had equally sincere convictions that the gods were angry and going to
ruin the crops and starve everyone, you've got a fuzzy call here regarding
just what is "value of human life".

In other words, value systems can be extremely tricky to define and judge.
Isaac Asimov exploited this constantly in his Three Laws of Robotics
loophole stories.  NI is supposed to be more sophisticated than AI here,
yet your approach is to flatten everything to 0-1.  That's propaganda.

>>>Could you please name another religion which demonstrates in words and deeds
>>>that it values human life with no exception?

>>Now what is this topic-changing switch supposed to accomplish?  I merely

>Why is it 'topic-changing'?

>From counting religions that place "value on human life" to counting
religions that place "value on human life with no exception".  Are you
really incapable of distinguishing 0-1 from fuzziness?

>>			     Until now, you did not reveal that you meant
>>superheroic dedication to all human life no matter what as #1 principle.

>Isn't there a misprint in your statement? My statement was that most religions
>DO NOT place value in all human life, regardless of membership.

I was not counting.  I was expanding on your change of meaning.

>>Regarding your original statement, there's Buddhism, Judaism, Jainism,
>>some forms of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism.  I don't know enough to make
>>counts for older religions in the Americas and Africa; some stand out as
>>pretty negative, some quite positive, the vast majority, I know nothing.

>You are being too extreme, who says about 'superheroic' etc?

That is precisely what "no exception" implies.  If I held by your "no
exception" rule, I would have to let a man kill instead of kill him first
if that was my only way of stopping him.

>							      I was trying to
>point out that the moral rule 'You shalt not kill', which is present in most
>religions (I hope we both agree here)

I don't think so.  It is certainly *not* present in Judaism, or forms of
Christianity that hold by the Judaic reading.

>				       had in most cases been treated in
>utilitarian and not absolute way (by the religions themselves and not only
>by their professed adherents).

Are you referring to the difference between murder and killing?  The 6th
commandment `lo tirtsakh' is definitely a reference to murder.  If that's
what you mean, just say so.

Otherwise, I have no idea of what you're saying.

>You may disagree with my lumping all flavours of Christianity
>together, but then there are many flavours of Islam too etc.

Yes, and I'd disagree with such lumping too.

>Counting may become complicated and more and more contoversial, but
>does it justify being so upset at my use of word 'most'?

If you use your algorithm to justify a sweeping generalization, then yes.
I hate all propaganda.  Your methods would allow someone to make the
equally vacuous statement "most religions value human life".

Fuzzy sets are fuzzy, and cannot be honestly counted in 0-1 terms.

>>>I'd appreciate if you were less cryptic. What this 'NI' might be?

>>The subject used to be "AI failures".  I changed it.  Figure it out.

>Well, I did. In fact your term seems to have caught on. Congratulations.

If that's the only thing that comes of this exchange, it was worth it. 
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)


