Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!jqb
From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: Minsky's new article
Message-ID: <jqbCz0KE4.IFp@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <39q9f9$92k@coli-gate.coli.uni-sb.de>
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 1994 18:51:39 GMT
Lines: 52

In article <39q9f9$92k@coli-gate.coli.uni-sb.de>,
Sean Matthews <sean@mpi-sb.mpg.de> wrote:
>> It's interesting to note that this thread is based upon your short, inaccurate,
>> mean-spirited characterization of Minsky's SciAm article (which you, in
>> an amazing display of intellectual dishonesty, self-characterized as "fair")
>> that omitted most of its content and misrepresented the tone of the portion
>> that it did pertain to.
>
>My characterisation of Minsky's article was certainly hostile (which
>I admitted, and make no appologies for), but also fair; I don't think I was
>intellectually dishonest in summarising the article as saying that in the
>future humanity is going to change into superintelligent robots that
>live for ever.

How is omitting most of its content and misrepresenting the tone of the
portion that your characterization did pertain to "fair"?  Failing to respond
to those two criticisms is, IMO, i.d.  Yes the article says what you say it
says (longer, not forever), in italics, right under the title.  That's hardly
a revelation.  But that is not a summary of the article, by a long shot.  The
article talks about goals, evolution, genetics, biological mechanisms, brain
structure, memory, mental information capacity, limitations of biology,
current technology, future technology, nonotechnology, essentialism, dualism,
mechanism, the nature of thought, error correction, adaptability, artificial
intelligence, knowledge representation, expert systems, frames, neural
networks, the nature of understanding, reductionism, ethics, fear of change,
fear of death, fear of boredom, fear of dependency and debility, and
meaningfulness, all as it *relates* to the topic of the article.

>My criticism was that the article implies that this is an inevitable
>destiny and that the implication that all the science and technology
>to achieve it are either in place or just a matter of working out
>the details.

These are topics worthy of exploration.  You needn't misrepresent the article
and launch a personal attack on Minksy and SciAm in order to do so.  And you
apparently didn't read the article carefully enough to understand what Minsky
means by "confirmed deathworshipper", regardless of what you think of the term
or its application.  Those were the topics *I* addressed, in the note you are
responding to.  I did not comment upon whether the article and its
implications and assumptions are correct.  You now want to have a nice, calm,
rational discussion about the appropriateness of technological speculation in
various forums.  But if you want to drink from the well, it isn't wise to
first dump in a bucket of poison.

>I do not think this criticism was unreasonable, but Minsky's answer was to
>dismiss it as `hopeless ranting'.

What the hell were you expecting, after "Daddy, daddy!"?


-- 
<J Q B>
