AI and cognitive psychology rant (getting more and more OT - tell me if I should shut up)

[John J. Lee]

Stephen Horne <steve at ninereeds.fsnet.co.uk> writes:
> On Sat, 25 Oct 2003 22:34:47 GMT, Alex Martelli <aleax at aleax.it>
> wrote:
[...this is Stephen again...]
> Just because physicists don't have a perfect model yet, it doesn't
> change basic facts that anyone can observe by opening their eyes.

'Basic facts that anyone can observe by opening their eyes' are
elusive things!  The earth is not flat.  All observations are made in
the context of a model of reality.

[...]
> The central
> role of people in defining the universe is something that, step by
> step, we are being forced to give up. We are not created in the image
> of god, the Earth is not the center of the universe,

Doubtful, but I can't be bothered to get into that.


> and our minds are
> no more special than any other arrangement of matter.

Unqualified, that's clearly nonsense.


> In quantum theory, the observer is nothing more than a sufficient mass
> that a superposition must be resolved quickly. Not so long ago, people
> were grasping to the idea that being an 'observer' in quantum physics
> was a special function of human consciousness. I do not need that
> hypothesis any more than I need the hypothesis of god, or the
> hypothesis that we are living in the matrix acting as magical
> batteries that somehow produce more energy than we consume.

(I like your general thrust, but I think it's simpler than that -- the
many-worlds theory just says "let's forget about the collapse of the
wavefunction", and everything seems to work out fine.)


> >Searle has written a book with a curiously similar title, "The
> >Construction of Social Reality", and takes hundreds of pages to defend
> >the view that there ARE "brute facts" independent of human actions
> >and perceptions -- but does NOT deny the existence of "social reality"
> >superimposed, so to speak, upon "brute reality".
> 
> Yes - but that "social reality" is nothing special either. There are
> good practical reasons for it - reasons which can be derived fairly
> simply from what we know of reality.

Yes.  We can explain the social aspects of reality even if not in
complete detail.  It doesn't bring up any major philosophical
problems, French sociologists notwithstanding.

[...]
> To be honest, I don't see the point of basing opinions on what was
> said by philosophers before the current level of knowledge about
> physics and about the mind was achieved.

Certainly some philosophers seem over-concerned with the history of
philosophy.


John