On 5/10/06, Ben Goertzel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> (1) Intuition is useless. Hard empirical data combined with hard math are
> the only route to truth.
Intuition, my friend, is needed to tell you what data to gather and
what theorems to prove ;-)
*sigh* You do like to argue don't you Ben?
Of course 'intuition' in the most general sense of the term is useful in some contexts, but I'm doing through a period of extreme disillusionment with philosophy/intuitive reasoning at the moment. Philosophy turned my brains to mush. I can't help but think you're a lot better off just tipping all the philosophy books in the bin and sitting down with a nice math text-book.
>Public speculation about anything going beyond
> hard data is worse than useless.
Not necessarily -- some folks have used it very successfully for
fundraising ;-) ... and these funds can then be used for the science
and math that you advocate!
But why bother if people yare just going to yell 'crack-pot!' every time you sepeculate?
> (2) Most of philosophy is gibberish.
>
> (3) Obsessing about the timing and effects of a possible Singularity falls
> into categories (1) and (2). Worse than useless and a constant neagative
> distraction. No one can possibly know what the real effects of an AGI would
> be (beyond some very general parameters) nor can any one really know when or
> if a Singularity will in fact occur. It's not science so forget it. Count
> yourselves lucky if a Singularity occurs sometime within your remaining
> lifetimes ( i.e within the next 0-40 years) and save any further speculation
> for that sci-fi novel you always intended to write but never got around to.
Well, whether we will be LUCKY when/if the Singularity occurs -- as
you have just glibly asserted -- is one of the main topics of
speculation ;-)
Um... I should have said: 'You're be lucky if a *positive* Singularity occurred within the next 40 years'.
But, I do agree that after a certain point of understanding is
reached, futurological speculation loses its value and time is better
spent in other ways. Most humans have not reached this point yet,
but perhaps most people on this list have.
-- Ben
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The futurology just got real old for me Ben. Waste of time man. You're better off just sitting down with a good math book instead.
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