self-help manual

[iansjack]

That is from introspection. You can try that yourself. Think of everything you do. Which specific bit of what you do can not be replicated in silicon with a sufficiently sophisticated algorithm?

Write a musical suite as beautiful as The Goldberg Variations. You would claim a computer could do that. Prove it; no computer to date has managed anything near that - what makes you think it ever could?

And as a corollary, what evidence is there that a computer could ever understand that beauty?

You can’t just load a new operating system into a brain and make it a Bach, a T. S. Eliot, a Bob Dylan, a Jimi Hendrix. These people excel at particular tasks in a way that we just don’t understand. It is facile to say that they are just the result of programming that any brain could equal.

Program yourself to write a Four Quartets or a Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands and then your belief might have some force. Until then, it’s just another flawed axiom. I wouldn’t want to live in a world where it applied.

[kerravon]

That is from introspection. You can try that yourself. Think of everything you do. Which specific bit of what you do can not be replicated in silicon with a sufficiently sophisticated algorithm?

Write a musical suite as beautiful as The Goldberg Variations.

Chess advocates were adamant that computers would never be able to beat a grandmaster too. And for decades they were right. And then suddenly someone got the algorithm right. Actually, before the killer algorithm, brute force hardware did the trick with Deep Blue.

You can’t just load a new operating system into a brain and make it a Bach

I'm not saying you can load it into a brain. I'm saying you can load it onto silicon - at least in principle.

I don't know how to write music, and as far as I can see, everything I am doing is purely computational. There's nothing at all magic in what I do.

My main point was about humanity as a whole. Humanity as a whole isn't writing music. They're all just glorified chimpanzees running predictable scripts - as I am myself. If there are some freaks that live outside of computation - that's fine - those rare freaks can live within the predictable society created for predictable chimps.

[iansjack]

That is from introspection. You can try that yourself. Think of everything you do. Which specific bit of what you do can not be replicated in silicon with a sufficiently sophisticated algorithm?

Write a musical suite as beautiful as The Goldberg Variations.

Chess advocates were adamant that computers would never be able to beat a grandmaster too. And for decades they were right. And then suddenly someone got the algorithm right. Actually, before the killer algorithm, brute force hardware did the trick with Deep Blue.

Chess is a deterministic game. As you say, it can be solved by brute force (given unlimited resources). Music, poetry, literature are not deterministic. There are no easy rules to allow us to produce and judge these things. According to your argument I should be able to load my brain with the software that would allow me to produce the equal of Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands - I don't believe that is true; I believe there is a spark of genius that goes beyond mere learning or programming.

You can’t just load a new operating system into a brain and make it a Bach

I'm not saying you can load it into a brain. I'm saying you can load it onto silicon - at least in principle.

Ah - so now you accept that the brain is not just the same as silicon. That's progress of a sort.

I don't know how to write music, and as far as I can see, everything I am doing is purely computational. There's nothing at all magic in what I do.

You can't judge all humanity by a single example. It's not all about you and your personal limitations.

My main point was about humanity as a whole. Humanity as a whole isn't writing music.

An awful lot of them are. And an awful lot of people write poems, songs, literature or produce painting, sculpture, etc. There's more to humanity than computation.

They're all just glorified chimpanzees running predictable scripts - as I am myself.

I'm prepared to accept that you are just a glorified chimpanzee, but you haven't justified that assertion about anyone else. Why should I listen to the glorified chimpanzee rather than those thinkers who are more than that? For example, what gives you the right to think that you can solve the problems of Iraq rather than those who act as more than just computers?

[kerravon]

Why should I listen to the glorified chimpanzee rather than those thinkers who are more than that? For example, what gives you the right to think that you can solve the problems of Iraq rather than those who act as more than just computers?

My hypothesis is that the vast majority of Iraqis are just glorified chimpanzees - like myself - responding to some basic genetic programming, which can thus be intercepted and dealt with.

I can't tell you how to get them to produce music - a small minority of freaks do that innately. I can tell you how to stop them from being bullies to each other. Specifically ensure their tribe is expanded to "the whole world" prior to the age of 6 (that's the basis of the in-group/out-group psychology, and we set the size of their out-group to 0), plus adopt a "protector" identity, before the age of 8, to redirect their instinct to dominate.

[iansjack]

Way to go, insulting a whole nation. But, again, what gives you - a glorified chimpanzee - the right to tell others what is best for them?

Sounds like a case of hubris to me.

[kerravon]

Way to go, insulting a whole nation.

It's all nations, not just Iraq.

But, again, what gives you - a glorified chimpanzee - the right to tell others what is best for them?

The free marketplace of ideas gives me that right.

[Solar]

But, again, what gives you - a glorified chimpanzee - the right to tell others what is best for them?

The free marketplace of ideas gives me that right.

Yep, free speech has often been used as an excuse by those who somehow felt the need to look down on others and feel superior when they really are nothing of the kind.

[iansjack]

The free marketplace of ideas gives me that right.

Yes. “Right” was the wrong word. You have every right to spout nonsense but should have no expectation that anyone will take the ramblings of a glorified chimpanzee seriously.