From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!dscatl!gwinnett!depsych!rc Tue Nov 19 11:10:26 EST 1991
Article 1350 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson)
Newsgroups: alt.postmodern,talk.philosophy.misc,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Is "logical analysis" worth knowing?
Message-ID: <926HBB1w164w@depsych.Gwinnett.COM>
Date: 16 Nov 91 11:35:43 GMT
References: <9111142140.18191@mydog.UUCP>
Lines: 35

gcf@mydog.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) writes:
> In awakening in the universe, "Man" finds himself surrounded by
> many things, including butterflies and the Eternal.  Generally,
> he seeks to stick these things on a pin and put them up on a
> wall -- to get power over them by killing them.  He runs from
> butterfly nets to the Crucifixion, _nailing_things_down_.
> 
> Having done so, however, he finds that his preserved objects lack
> a quality of things still not on the wall -- the quality of
> vitality, unpredictability, imagination, spontaneity.  What to
> do?  One is to make the dead things move as if they were alive.
> Hence the myths, so powerful in our time, of the golem, 
> the zombie, the robot, and Frankenstein's monster.  

That is itself an excellent myth!  I always suspected, even when I
was a kid, that at least part of the emotional basis of my
interest in things like AI (which preceded the actual
establishment of the field) was the equivalent of duller kids'
interest in robots and really dumb kids'joy in mechanical ducks
that bobbed their heads while they waddled.

But note that even after we've deconstucted our motivations, we're
still fascinated by it -- like a car nut who is insightful enough
to realize that his fascination with acceleration is related to
his feelings of sexual inadequacy.

Besides, there is a practical payoff from formalizing thought
processes which is part of the reason why we try to do it. I
suppose both types of motivation are intermixed.

--
Richard Carlson        |    rc@depsych.gwinnett.COM
Midtown Medical Center |    {rutgers,ogicse,gatech}!emory!gwinnett!depsych!rc
Atlanta, Georgia       |
(404) 881-6877         |


