OK, so I'm not writing the lengthy tour guide to the internet that I promised.

One immediate reaction to the idea that machines can think is to reject it because the language that seems perfectly adequate for capturing the operations of a computer (hardware, program, menu etc.) fails almost completely to capture the nuance and variety of human experience. The same can be said for teh vocabulary of neuroscience replacing the various ways we have of expressing ourselves about our selves.

This is true, as far as it goes. It begs the question of wether a machine could ever find itself in a situation where the language of engineering is no longer sufficient to explain its normal operation. I suspect that would never be allowed to happen simply because we'll always need thing to compute the spreadsheets and process the words.

This reaction also seems to require that we keep the three vocabularies distinct. Doing is both alien to our ordinary experience, but it also ignores the possibility that either the machine vocabulary or the neuro-vocabulary could enhance the ways that we talk about ordinary experience. The "adrenaline rush", the dangers of multi-tasking, ...

More on this later in the semester ...

NEXT: how to blog



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  Judge Posner on LessigBlog Richard Posner wrote the book on American public intellectuals, and before you point it out, this particular observation is getting old.

So I'll mention another observation. I was at a conference the summer before last at which Judge Posner was a featured speaker, as was John Searle. Searle represents a certain way of doing contemporary philosophy, one which has had a powerful influence on me and so I'll be mentioning Prof. Searle in the future on this blog.

One thing to keep in mind: Philosophy is war.

This is most obvious when watching philosopher's at a lecture. I'm given to understand that most disciplines have they're share of boppers. These are people who listen to a talk and bob their head in agreed with the speaker. If not agreement, then at least acknowledgement that the presentation has a flow and the ideas relate to each other in an interesting way. Think about head bobbers at concerts who involve their whole bodies in listening to the music. These folks can be seen at classical and jazz concerts, whole bodying listening isn't just a pop music sort of thing.

Well, there's another way of listening to a philosophy lecture. This is the sort of body language in which someone, frequently a philosophy, doesn't care to listen to the lecture because their more interested in the blood letting that's prone to happen in the discussion period. Searle is a master of this sort of blood-letting and each time I've seen him perform, he's quite masterfully put his rhetorical hooks into multiple targets at the same time.

But Searle, like many philosophers, doesn't bop to a lecture, he quite visibly struggles to keep himself from jumping up to put some poor fool in his place.

So here's Posner seated among philosophers, and while Searle might be the most extreme in his body language, the others aren't far behind, their emotional engagement to whatever's being said is clear. But Posner's not a philosopher, he's a judge. Judges are supposed to weigh ideas dispassionately, not as a lover would but as as

Posner sits through each presentation staring straight ahead at some indistinct point in front of him. He weres the same placid grin and doesn't move his head very much if at all, he looks like he's day dreaming or thinking about something else besides the events in the room. When the discussion time comes around, he asked sharp questions and made observations that showed he had been listening, but during the presentation itself, he gave no hints at all about what he might be thinking.

I wonder if they teach that at judge school.

In any case, Posner's an interesting thinker and the Lessig beat, intellectual property, is one where he's already demonstrated that he has something to say, so this week, as every week, is bound to be worth reading.  ¶ #

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  What to Expect I'm getting ready for classes right now. I expect that this week ahead will be read by students who choose to scan backwards through this blog. So I'm going to be spending the next five days or so doing a traditional blog sort of thing, highlighting interesting and useful things to read on the rest of the internet. Following that I probably won't be blogging at the very start of classes, immediately after that I'll be travelling to Ireland for my sister's wedding. I may blog from the Emerald Isle, but don't hold your breath.  ¶ #

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