From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!destroyer!gumby!yale!yale.edu!jvnc.net!netnews.upenn.edu!sagi.wistar.upenn.edu Mon May 25 14:06:00 EDT 1992
Article 5718 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!destroyer!gumby!yale!yale.edu!jvnc.net!netnews.upenn.edu!sagi.wistar.upenn.edu
>From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: NI failure
Message-ID: <78312@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 18 May 92 15:45:26 GMT
References: <1992May13.155329.21787@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <78053@netnews.upenn.edu> <1992May15.140530.1631@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Sender: news@netnews.upenn.edu
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
Lines: 101
Nntp-Posting-Host: sagi.wistar.upenn.edu
In-reply-to: pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)

In article <1992May15.140530.1631@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>, pindor@gpu (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>>>Firstly, it seems that you lead a very isolated life.

>>Where do you get that impression?  *You* come up with two examples, and
>>assume that counts as "most religions"?  Just what metric are you using?

>Firstly, where are these two examples? You are cofusing different posts.

You mentioned Christianity and Islam, as if this supported your claim that
most religions placed value in members' lives only.  If you mentioned them
for some other reason, then I have no idea of why you are posting.

>Secondly, since you seem to demand that I precisely define what I
>mean (your obstinate reference to 'metric', above and in few other
>place),

You are the one making some obnoxious statements about "most religions".
Since under any obvious and reasonably counting scheme I can think of,
this is complete nonsense, I'm offering you the chance to show a point
of view where you statement is not at the level of typical communist
propaganda or whatnot.

>	 may be you would be so kind as to specify what metric did you
>use in your original statement that religions (metric please - how
>many or the head count of the faithful or what) generally value
>(metric please) human life.

If I work with say, a coherent, self-consistent set of practices and/or
beliefs, then "Christianity" is dozens of religions, only some of which
agree with your claim.  This is the AI problem of counting polymorphous
sets, and there is no standard way of dealing with it.  Your presumed
way, of picking one member as representative and locking on it, is not
considered very useful in the AI community.

>			     I do not remeber exactly your statement,
>but I think that the above captures most of the meaning.  Although
>you make a reference to standard English (discrete) metric, I fail to
>see how it you apply it to measure your statement vs. mine (and come
>up with a superior result for your opinion).

When X disagrees with Y about what is category Z, I am counting Z twice.

>>Again, you are assuming one particular metric and whinging based on it.
>>Good for propaganda, not for intelligent discussion.  You have to explain
>>why time is the relevant metric, and not say, head count.

>I could try if I knew how do you measure things.

You could give us a clue as to how you are counting.  Based on what you
posted, you are lumping together unlike religions and calling them the
same.  And conveniently counting them in the negative.

That is not thought--just propaganda.

>>an exponential growth in population, you may recall, with the mostest
>>being this past century.

>And how many followers of any religion in this past century have demonstrated
>that they put value in any life but their own or members of their kin or tribe
>or religion?

Millions and millions and millions.  Of course, these people don't make
the headlines, like the millions and millions and millions that you are
aware of and take as representative.

>	      And may I remind you that it is a quite a new phenomenon to try
>to establish explicit moral acceptance for abortion. Although abortion has 
>always been practiced, until recently it has not been loudly hailed as morally
>acceptable. The same applies to eutanasia and the 'right do die' idea. So in 
>some respects, things are even getting worse.

Bleah bleah bleah.  I'm not interested in debating any morals, certainly
not in this newsgroup.  Just where do you get off on your "counting" and
where are you coming up with "most" from?  Your "bleah bleah bleah" above
seems to be no more than you've had unhappy run-ins with noisy minorities,
and use them to define the whole of their "religion"--under my metric, I'm
counting such factionings as separate--and you use this to skew your counts
so you can take a broad propagandistic swipe.  NI failure.

>>[Buddhism as a possible example]

>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
rejected your assertion that most religions place value in all human life,
regardless of membership.  Until now, you did not reveal that you meant
superheroic dedication to all human life no matter what as #1 principle.

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.

>>Like I said, I think we have an NI failure here.  

>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.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)


