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Article 7660 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: It is AI when...
Message-ID: <28221@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 16 Nov 92 17:40:59 GMT
References: <1992Nov10.204536.16987@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Nov11.074800.16835JPII@tygra.Michigan.COM> <Stafford-131192111721@stafford.winona.msus.edu>
Organization: Edinburgh University
Lines: 34

In article <Stafford-131192111721@stafford.winona.msus.edu> Stafford@Vax2.Winona.MSUS.EDU (John Stafford) writes:

>There is an interesting philosophy which asserts that one cannot
>completely know the tool which is knowing.

There is another which asserts that one can.

There is a third which asserts that it doesn't matter, since we are
fortunately able to build things which work without having to
understand them properly.

There is a fourth which says that since science is a collective social
endeavour, just as is any large scale engineering enterprise,
therefore a society of people working according to the scientific
method and good organisational principles can, as a society,
understand and build things in principle quite beyond the
comprehension of any individual members of that society.

There is fifth which points out that since a totally blind, ignorant,
accident-prone, and severely constrained mechanical brute search of
the design possibilities was able to "design" people (aka evolution),
that creatures capable of understanding (aka people) ought to be able
to do better.

>There is an interesting philosophy which asserts that one cannot
>completely know the tool which is knowing.

I'm saving up statements like this to feed to the first artificial
intelligence with philosophical pretensions, in the hope that they
might cause it to explode, or even to believe them!
-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh          +44 (0)31 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205


