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Author Topic:   Stephen Jay Gould: The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister’s Pox
nwr
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Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 4.3


Message 17 of 92 (759603)
06-13-2015 12:28 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by mikechell
06-13-2015 11:29 AM


Artificial Intelligence is coming ... maybe not in our lifetime, but it's coming.
We are exactly half way there. The "artificial" part is working perfectly. The intelligence part -- not so much.

Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 4.3


Message 23 of 92 (759645)
06-13-2015 11:35 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by MrHambre
06-13-2015 11:20 PM


Except when they don't. Yale professor David Gelertner criticizes neuroscientists for sticking to the mechanistic analogy of brain-as-biological-computer long after it has outlived its usefulness.
If you look, I'm sure you can find many web pages that shred Gelernter's ridiculous rant.

Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

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Replies to this message:
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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 4.3


Message 26 of 92 (759650)
06-14-2015 1:05 AM
Reply to: Message 24 by MrHambre
06-13-2015 11:44 PM


Just out of curiosity, what do you think is so "ridiculous" about Gelertner's ideas?
Just to pick an example, Gelerter wrote:
quote:
That science should face crises in the early 21st century is inevitable. Power corrupts, and science today is the Catholic Church around the start of the 16th century: used to having its own way and dealing with heretics by excommunication, not argument.
Gelernter is himself a scientist. He ought to know how little power science actually has.

Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

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Replies to this message:
 Message 28 by MrHambre, posted 06-14-2015 9:21 AM nwr has replied

  
nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 4.3


(1)
Message 29 of 92 (759674)
06-14-2015 9:36 AM
Reply to: Message 28 by MrHambre
06-14-2015 9:21 AM


I'd say science has a lot more power than you let on.
Yes, sure. That's why the global warming problem was solved several decades ago. The scientists just used their marvellous power to solve the problem. They could ignore the denialists.
Meantime, back in reality, the only power that scientists have is the power of persuasion when they have good ideas that work. In an era where there is a lot of anti-science and global warming denialism, that power is not very effective.
Oh, and Gelernter is a denialist.

Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 4.3


(1)
Message 50 of 92 (759776)
06-15-2015 12:38 AM
Reply to: Message 48 by Faith
06-14-2015 11:49 PM


Faith writes:
I grew up in this science-besotted world, I was part of the Sputnik generation that got a megadose of science propaganda in high school, pushed as the salvation of America and indeed the world.
Not my experience.
To be fair, I grew up in Australia, so perhaps a poor comparison.
Faith writes:
EVERYTHING was reduced to science.
That sounds like exaggeration. It has never been that way.
I'll have to guess that either you were badly taught, or that science is just a mismatch for your personality (much like art appreciation would be a mismatch for my personality).
AZPaul3 writes:
Which are meanings you give to objects through your eyes, philosophy, acculturation, hope. The science did not belittle your ability to do this one bit.
Faith writes:
Oh yes it did. It dictated the terms in which I was allowed to have such experiences, which is what you are doing now. Imputing my experience to mere subjectivity, reducing all of it to a figment of the mind. That's really a form of soul murder.
Weird. What's mere about subjectivity?
Faith writes:
And it is primarily the worldview of reductionistic science that created this shrunken miserable trivial meaningless world.
I'm not a reductionist, and to me, science is rich in meaning. Art -- not so much.

Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 4.3


(1)
Message 62 of 92 (759864)
06-15-2015 5:06 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by MrHambre
06-15-2015 2:40 PM


I'm sure you can recognize the distinction between noticing what we're made of and defining ourselves as a collection of the chemicals that comprise the human body.
I have come across some people who try to define humans that way. They were all religious nuts or right wing crazies, attempting to ridicule science.
Real scientists know better than that.

Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 4.3


(2)
Message 68 of 92 (759941)
06-16-2015 10:08 AM
Reply to: Message 67 by MrHambre
06-16-2015 6:17 AM


Ask the poster above you, our buddy AZPaul3, who made the claim. For some reason, he's desperate to push this notion of our biochemical bagness.
No, he isn't.
He is saying that if you insist on making an absurdly literalistic reading of what scientists say, then here's a way of making it even more absurd.
He is not recommending that sort of literalistic reading. He is ridiculing it.
Whatever happened to the principle of charity?
Edited by nwr, : No reason given.

Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

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