Nick writes: "So when someone proposes a measure of something complicated such as "atheism", it's fair to ask what the validator of that measure would be, what the measure is actually intended to GET AT. And one of the kind of standard observations that my kind of psychologist often makes, is that validator of something complex like atheism is actually a complex behavior pattern, not lodged in an instant, but observable in a person over many circumstances and over a sustained period of time. "
Is it the complexity of the patterns of atheist approach itself, or the many (competing) ontologies involved in evaluating situations in the real world? I doubt metaphysics is an area that IBM will prioritize for Watson, but.. I suspect it is likely they could fake an atheist, at least for multiple-choice tests. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com