Gene Callahan on Non-Human Actors
In a post criticizing methodological individualism, Gene writes (and then quotes):
A plain fact that methodological individualism will block us from seeing or accepting:
“The facts authorize us — no, they oblige us! — to say that Islam as such, Islam understood as a meaningful whole, is in motion, that it strives and struggles, in a world [where] it is an actor on the stage of history that must be taken very seriously. Thus the world in which we must live and act is a world marked by the effort, the movement, the forward thrust of Islam.”
I think Gene’s position here is interesting to juxtapose with his earlier criticism of the notion of intelligent computers that could play chess better than humans:
They were, of course, built by human beings. When a grandmaster is “shredded” by a computer program, he is really being defeated by a team of programmers and chess experts who have a calculation machine at their disposal. Just because they don’t literally sit inside the machine, as a human being did inside the chess-playing Turk, does not mean that the machine has somehow mysteriously “become intelligent,” any more than a rabbit trap is intelligent because it “knows” how to catch a rabbit. Machines can be “intelligent” only in that they can be “intelligently built.”
I think this raises the obvious question: Can Islam as such play chess better than humans?
Let me draw your attention once again to the fact that the Bible clearly treats both Israel and “the Church” as agents in history.
LOL
Can you give some clear examples of this?
The church is the body of Christ?
“Now, Israel, hear the decrees and laws I am about to teach you.”
“Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey”
“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,”
“So Israel will live in safety”
‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’
“So the Lord’s anger burned against Israel.”
“Israel has sinned”
“When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai”
“The ox knows its master, the donkey its owner’s manger, but Israel does not know,”
“So the Lord will cut off from Israel both head and tail, ”
“And Israel will take possession of the nations and make them male and female servants in the Lord’s land. ”
‘The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.”’
“for you, Israel, are my servant.”
“Is Israel a servant, a slave by birth? ”
“Have you seen what faithless Israel has done?”
“Because Israel’s immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood.”
“Both Israel and Judah have broken the covenant I made…”
‘do not be dismayed, Israel,’
“How long will you wander, unfaithful Daughter Israel? ”
Is that enough?
I was just asking, Gene. I wanted to know what you meant. thanks for showing me.
Do you think these are examples of The Bible treating Israel as an actor, or the Bible addressing an audience? To me, it seems to be more of the latter than the former.
Your claim about “The Church” is pretty hard for me to swallow. “The Church,” the Christian church, didn’t formally appear until decades after the last events in the Bible take place. Some put it at ~140 years, IIRC. So there is something problematic there.
But at least now I see what you mean.
I Corinthians 12:27 does seem to fit Gene’s needs.
Yes, it looks like that one works.
It sounds more to me like the Bible is referring to Israel as a goat, not an acting agent.
Or, as is normal in colloquial language, the reference to Israel refers to “the individuals who constitute Israel.”
I also find the Bible mostly irrelevant to this post.
I sense that you want become a crusader and go to Holy Land to kill infidels. If you have any desire to kill for revenge, then you have to read the gospel again.
I fear that you have studied too much philosophy and have forgotten the important things.
Please, read and compare.
I sense that you are an idiot.
Always classy.
Sometime right.
Funny post.
Matthew 5:22.
Because I’m an idiot, I don’t think you are in danger of hellfire. Also, there is context.
I see that people trying to build a case to justify revenge. One strategy is to claim that Islam is an actor, and punishable as a person. To me, this is the wrong way to go. I believe that Americans are not guilty or responsible for the crimes of CIA agents or the crimes of the Federal Government officials and leaders. I don’t consider America, the CIA or the Federal Government as actors. People act, regardless of their banner. Concepts, just like inanimate objects, do not act.
The American people is not responsible for actions that its memebers didn’t do. Why would I believe that civilan people from muslim countries deserve to be punished by the crimes of their leaders or of a supposedly non-human actor such as Islam. But I really wonder if you, Gene Callahan, are going in that direction.
There have been murders. The murderers or killers were of the islamic faith, as we are told. They are already dead. Most of their bosses are not dead. Trying to kill the bosses to do justice will probably result in the killing of inocents, that is, more murder. I ignore whether you have taken into account these things. Will you save me from my ignorance?
Also, I think you could have handled my doubt and my suggestion to read the gospel and compare it to philosophy a little bit better. But surely I’m wrong and that is the best you can do.
The Crusades started because pilgrims were being killed when they ventured to Jerusalem. After all those centuries of carnage and robbery, nothing good was accomplished. After the Reformation, people suffered terrible wars of religion in their countries. That is, pilgrims were not safe even at the beginning of the journey. Good job, isn’t it? I fear we want a good thing (no more islamic mass killings) and we may wind up with something even worse. After studying some history, my opinion is that we better tread carefully. Christian countries are good places to live in because the people discovered that peace and commerce is better than war and servitude. Muslims have not discover this yet. We can help. Revenge does not help. You are a fine thinker. Think about it, please.
Seems like concepts like “methodological individualism” are humans attempts at simplifying our study human & social behavior behavior, which is something that is complex beyond our understanding. This leads to interesting statements about Islam’s ability to play chess.
I had no idea what “methodological individualism” was so I checked wikipedia. Interesting statement there:
“Economist Mark Blaug has criticized over-reliance on methodological individualism: “it is helpful to note what methodological individualism strictly interpreted … would imply for economics. In effect, it would rule out all macroeconomic propositions that cannot be reduced to microeconomic ones … this amounts to saying goodbye to almost the whole of received macroeconomics. There must be something wrong with a methodological principle that has such devastating implications.”
Pretty easy to rule out any ideas that might destroy your own career.
Right. Typical ‘For that which must not, cannot be’ Argument..
Maybe, but I”m always trying to come up with some explanation for why educated economists often disagree on what appear to be very basic concepts. My answer is that economics is a social science and humans don’t understand ourselves nearly as well as we think.
To say that an idea spreads as if spreading were an action is poetic, and it is sometimes useful as a fast and loose way of talking, but it is imprecise. The driving forces behind ideas can be decomposed into more precise mechanisms: (1) the conscious actions of individuals, which can be studied with methodological individualism, (2) the structure of risks and rewards that each individual faces, which may be a function of social norms, (3) the unconscious reactions that individuals have when they experience traumatic events, etc. But to lump all these concepts together and call the spreading an “action” is at least, a form of obfuscation.
To say there is a storm approaching is a form of obfuscation, since the metaphor of “a storm” can always be broken down in the more precise mechanism of particles moving around.
Except nobody ever actually tries to deal with a storm that way, just as no one ever actually tries to deal with WWII as a bunch of inidivdual soldiers moving around. It takes a lot of training to come to see the very concept that CLARIFIES the situation (a storm, a war) as an obfuscation!
Well people != storms.
One has free will, another doesn’t. Is that not relevant?
“One has free will” Are you sure?
What a ridiculous question.
Why is it ridiculous? The issue of free will is controversial. Particularly in a discussion about the smallest unit we should be considering. It is believed by many that causation means that free will is an illusion, and as far as I am aware there is nothing to prove this wrong.
There is no reason why the individual human should be the smallest unit. We should continue down to cells and molecules.
A lot of people believe in many different non sequiturs. That doesn’t mean people need proof that a non sequitur isn’t true. Nor does widespread belief in a non sequitur genuinely qualify as “controversy.”
A non sequitur is an argument where a conclusion does not follow from the premises. In everyday speech, a non sequitur is a statement unconnected to previous statements, or an answer unconnected to the question. Combining the two in an example:
Premise 1) The pope is Brazilian
Premise 2) Brazilians love music
Conclusion) 2+2=4
The final equation is a non sequitur, but is believed by many. It is also true. A true statement can be a non sequitur in the right context
I am not sure what you are referring to as a non sequitur, and as such I am not sure what point you are making. Possibly it is that free will is true and self evident.
As far as true statements, free will is an illusion may be a true statement.
It depends what you mean by free will, so even if some version of free will must be true because it is a tautology, the question “are you sure” is still a valid question because the version of free will being referred to has no been made explicit.
You need to work on your ability to understand context.
” It is believed by many that causation means that free will is an illusion, and as far as I am aware there is nothing to prove this wrong.”
There are two non sequiturs in this sentence.
Could you point out the two non sequiturs please? I don’t see either of them. The sentence consists of two premises and no conclusion, so I don’t see how there can be even one non sequitur included. the conclusion comes before the sentence: the issue of free will is controversial.
If you don’t like my argument perhaps you prefer direct quotes to the same effect.
“There is no consensus within psychology as to whether we really do have free will -” Dr Seth Schwartz
“Scientists have vehemently argued the theory that free will is simply an illusion,” Smantha Olson, Medical Daily.
And many, many more.
In this context the question I asked is not at all ridiculous.
Premise “causation” conclusion “means that free will is an illusion”
Premise “believed by many” conclusion, implicit: could be true.
That Mr. Schwartz and Ms.Olson have the same psychological problems you do does mean there is any actual controversy.
Premise: Believed by many
Conclusion: controversial, NOT may be true.
How many experts and professionals does it take for there to be controversy? It is not really an argument to say that anyone that disagrees with you has psychological problems and therefore can be discounted.
It is in this case. These people are not “experts” their just people academically trained to be good at thinking badly.
QED
From the Latin for “I surrender.”
Not according to my dictionary 🙂
Yep!
Callahan,
The science of “storms” is not distinct from the science of water, electricity, and heat transfers. It is not an obfuscation to refer to storms, as long as one is not presuming a different method of science for storms as compared to the constituent components.
The science of human action on the other hand IS distinct from the science of cells and neurons and other constituent physical parts of a human being. Here, the individual human being is behaving with a purpose, whereas the carbon atoms, water and other constituent components are not.
Your analogy doesn’t work because individual action is not reducible, or is it aggregative. It is the datum.
Murphy is saying that just like you said a computer program isn’t a distinct actor or consciousness, but is rather explainable by the individual programmers, so too is Islam not it’s own actor or consciousness.
https://mises.org/library/principle-methodological-individualism
“Here, the individual human being is behaving with a purpose,”
This is conjecture. It may be that the human is just acting as a collection of cells. Your claim of non-reproducible is not demonstrated.
The arguments Mises puts forward in the passage you link to are hopeless. Since nobody that I am aware of is arguing that social groups are not the sum of the actions of individuals, most of his discussion is moot. As Silas Barta says (below), it is about which model we use. Using the model based on individuals cannot give us the level of explanation of groups we need, even if ultimately it could. Similarly, models based on molecules cannot give us the level of explanation of people we need, even if ultimately they could.
You are presuming a transcendence of mere “collection of cells” phenomena when you make a claim to a truth.
But in fact I do not need to reject the conjecture you are referring to, which is that we are a collection of cells. For we already know of the phenomena of emergent behavior, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts, in which case we are a collection of cells PLUS.
I am more than just cells. For I am not you, and all you are is cells.
I reject the premise that “it is about” which model we have to use. Models are human constructs, thoughts only. They are assumed to be distinct from reality as it is, but accepted as guiding principles and thoughts by virtue of their ability to predict the future.
What praxeology would deal with is the reality of modelling qua modelling.
I do not think it is presumptuous for me to assume that what you just wrote above, is even according to you the product of an intention to accomplish something. That is not a mere sequence of events which may or may not display some regularity.
Sure, you can double down and insist you are just an automaton, and that what you wrote is in your own mind just another “collection of cells” purposeless event in the complex series of events that take place over time in the universe.
But then I will continue to think and act and be more than just a collection of cells. You could continue to say I am wrong, but by your own account you would not be saying anything that overrules or eliminates or otherwise delegitimizes anything I say or do. By my account however, saying you are wrong and I am right has actual meaning.
You said you are not aware of anyone who says social groups are not the sum of the actions of the individuals. I don’t know why you would think your own personal experiences and your own personal discussions has anything to do with whether or not Mises’ argument is “moot”.
” I don’t know why you would think your own personal experiences and your own personal discussions has anything to do with whether or not Mises’ argument is “moot”.”
I am pointing out a straw man fallacy.
“If we scrutinize the meaning of the various actions performed by individuals we must necessarily learn everything about the actions of collective wholes… Thus the way to a cognition of collective wholes is through an analysis of the individuals’ actions.”
Only if we can understand the actions of individual in sufficient detail. If this is impossible we may be better to look at social groups as an entity.
” For we already know of the phenomena of emergent behavior, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts, in which case we are a collection of cells PLUS.”
So you have no objection to the possibility of a collection of humans as “collection of humans PLUS”?
At which point the individual would not be the appropriate focus for enquiry.
“I reject the premise that “it is about” which model we have to use.”
Fail enough, we haven’t fully elucidated what “it” is, so you could be right.
If we want to study or discuss the behaviour of groups of people in a predictive way, then that is about selecting the appropriate model, which is not necessarily the individual.
If you want to philosophise about what level reality exists at, then that is another thing, and again the individual is not necessarily the optimum unit.
“I do not think it is presumptuous for me to assume that what you just wrote above, is even according to you the product of an intention to accomplish something.”
I do not know how I could distinguish between an intention to do something and an illusion of an intention to do something.
“I am pointing out a straw man fallacy.”
But it isn’t. Mises addressed what actually must be the case for the specific arguments definitely advanced throughout history, that the individual is but an abstraction of the group. You personally may not hold that belief, but Mises was not addressing those who understanding methodological individualism. Not a straw man. He was directing his argument against a specific one for the purposes of refuting that argument, and not the one you may hold.
“Only if we can understand the actions of individual in sufficient detail. If this is impossible we may be better to look at social groups as an entity.”
But it isn’t impossible. Every “group action” can be easily and almost self-evidently understood as the product of ideas of the individuals. One group does X? How difficult is it to understand that the individuals concerned believed in X?
“So you have no objection to the possibility of a collection of humans as “collection of humans PLUS”?”
No, because any knowledge of your action must necessarily be centered on you as an individual, or someone else as an individual. With cells, the emergent behavior can be summed to you and your understanding. With multiple individuals, you have not transcended yourself as an individual, unlike the cells which have to create your understanding.
“At which point the individual would not be the appropriate focus for enquiry.”
But the individual is the only appropriate focus for you. You cannot transcend your own individual consciousness.
“If we want to study or discuss the behaviour of groups of people in a predictive way, then that is about selecting the appropriate model, which is not necessarily the individual.”
You are not able to predict your own future state of knowledge, and yet your knowledge influences what you do.
Since everyone else cannot predict their own future knowledge, your demand that we do predict our own knowledge and actions can readily be understood as an abortive attempt to replicate the physical sciences in the field of knowledge and actions. It is not possible to do what you seem to just assume is the natural thing to do.
“If you want to philosophise about what level reality exists at, then that is another thing, and again the individual is not necessarily the optimum unit.”
But you are already philosophizing by critiquing the individualist epistemology. The individual is not necessarily the optimum unit? I have never read any author, Jung, etc, to convince me to think otherwise.
If you want me to believe it something on faith, you’re going to have a bad time. I don’t put feel good emotions over truth.
“I do not know how I could distinguish between an intention to do something and an illusion of an intention to do something.”
That is expected when the knowledge of something real is so engrained and self-evident that to even postulate the alternative leads to nonsense.
Many points to discuss. I will not defend the straw man allegation as I have not enough time to check. Suffice to say Mises’ arguments do not answer my questions.
“But it isn’t impossible. Every “group action” can be easily and almost self-evidently understood as the product of ideas of the individuals. One group does X? How difficult is it to understand that the individuals concerned believed in X?”
Where do those ideas come from? Whilst in principle we could discover this by study of the individuals in sufficient detail, we are not able to do this at present. Similarly, we can describe the behavior of the individual in principle by study in sufficient detail of the component parts, but we are not yet able to do so.
Until we are able to do so (which may be never), then we must of necessity use different models if we wish to understand more about the behavior of groups.
“That is expected when the knowledge of something real is so engrained and self-evident that to even postulate the alternative leads to nonsense.”
Can you explain why this is nonsense?
The storm concept is a good example of a useful aggregate. We can discuss the estimated path or the storm, how hard the winds will blow, how much rain will fall. These estimates are sometimes terrible, but still useful as a rule of thumb. There are many storm-related areas where more careful analysis is necessary and often done (e.g. filing an insurance claim).
The war concept is particularly obfuscatory. You know better than I do that the modal historical analysis of a “war” is too broad and shallow. It’s useful as a shorthand to refer to periods and areas, but it is very often used by authors to avoid careful analysis, or by participants to obscure chains of responsibility.
Observing that certain groups of people act in similar ways in certain situations does not exempt us from considering the *individual* when we want to understand any *particular* action.
Situations and institutions influence human behavior, but responsibility and agency can only be applied at the individual level. As per Bob’s point, it tends to be the case that people indict individuals or groups whenever it is expedient, and that developing a single theory or methodology based on the intricate relationship of an individual to his/her society is a huge if not futile project.
Oy gevalt. I always understood both MI and reductionism as saying that must *permit* a reduction to a lower level (in MI’s case, individuals), not that the lowest level is the *best* or *only* level at which you should speak.
For example, thermodynamics reduces to statistic mechanics but that doesn’t mean you should always use atom-level models of pistons.
I usually want to bring this up on Gene_Callahan’s blog, but by the time I can comment, several intelligent Austrians are endorsing (what I thought was) his strawman, so … I guess he is correcting a legit confusion.
Sorry, dropped a word in the first sentence: “…as saying that _models_ must permit a reduction …”.
Couldn’t agree more. I think using the term “actor” my not be very useful, but we still need to model at a larger scale than the individual.
Gene’s comment bout computers is not correct – have to agree with Bob there. The fact that the computer was put together by humans does not logically preclude the computer from being intelligent. I think he is right that chess playing computers are not intelligent, but that is because of how they work, not because they were built by humans. Chess playing computers are rubbish at just about everything else.
But even within the confines of chess and ignoring definitions of intelligence, can we say that the Grand Master is defeated by the computer, or by the programmers? I think it is valid to say he is defeated by the computer.
Also, with the more exotic computers out there, our ability to predict their moves may be as limited as our ability to predict our children’s moves. So if you think Albert Einstein was smarter than his mother, you shouldn’t have a problem, in principle, with the idea of accepting it for a computer vs *its* “builder”.
Einstein was not more sapient than his mother.
From wiki: “Sapience is often defined as wisdom, or the ability of an organism or entity to act with appropriate judgement, a mental faculty which is a component of intelligence or alternatively may be considered an additional faculty, apart from intelligence, with its own properties.”
Einstein may or may not have been more sapient than his mother.
Perhaps you mean sentient. “In modern Western philosophy, sentience is the ability to experience sensations.” Then we have no reason to think Einstein was more sentient than his mother.
Chess playing computers are almost certainly not sentient. That does not mean that sentient computers could not be built.
No, I meant sapient. And Einstein was certainly not more sapient than his mother.
To paraphrase Sheldon Cooper, sapience is an absolute state and not subject to gradation.
I will give you that by some uses of the term sapience is an absolute state. Particularly as used in Sci. Fi. By strict dictionary definition it is not. So I will agree that Einstein was not more sapient than his mother by the meaning you intended, since both had passed the undefined threshold required.
I am not sure if my dog is sapient or not.
The sense in which I meant it is the salient definition to the conversation at hand.
But not the one in any of the variety of dictionaries I looked it up in.
Here’s how relevant dictionaries are to this conversation, and how much point there is to continuing it now that you’ve conceded what you were disputing:
Now we have established our terms, I don’t see any reason why we could not in principle create a sapient computer. I also think we have not yet done so.
My point was merely that Silas’ example does not actually demonstrate what he needs it to.
Obviously if humans evolved from non sapient animals, at some point someone *was* more sapient than their mother.
This is the problem with the idea of sapience being an absolute state. If we accept evolution, at some point the threshold was crossed, but it would be very hard to justify assigning sapience to one generation rather than the one before or the one after.
Anyway, we digress. It seems we are basically in agreement.
Only if I were a materialist.
Yeah, I’ve noticed there seems to be a trend of attempting to caricature reductionism as if all reductionists sit around with really nice computer hardware and blank hard drives (believing as they must that organization is not important, therefore software is entirely unnecessary).
I doubt any real reductionist thinks along those lines, the point of a “bottom up” view of the world is that understanding the building blocks is what you do before you start building, not what you do instead of building anything. Here’s a typical example of what is from my perspective quite a misrepresentation of what science is about and how it works.
http://www.theordealofconsciousness.com/2016/07/18/eleonore-stump-on-natural-law-metaphysics-and-god-as-creator/
These debates on reductionism already happened more than 20 years ago in the scientific community and got very quickly resolved in a rational manner.
“I always understood both MI and reductionism as saying that must *permit* a reduction to a lower level (in MI’s case, individuals)”
BINGO.
We can speak of “Nations” or “Communities”, as long as these concepts permit the notion that these refer to groups of individuals.
Yep. I have no problem speaking of the actions of nations, groups, etc, so long as there *exists* a meaningful transformation of the expression into actions of individuals. I have a huge problem with expressions that can’t be reduced this way even in principle.
“We can speak of “Nations” or “Communities”, as long as these concepts permit the notion that these refer to groups of individuals.”
And that these individuals refer to groups of cells.
Harold come on that is just silly. It is reductionism ad absurdum.
Who is really referring to Trump’s cells when they call him a bigot? Cells cannot be bigote
Who really is “referring” to quarks when they talk about Caesar crossing the Rubicon?
Must we not permit the notion that Trump is a group of cells, even if we do not talk of such very often?
You mean never?
Of course we talk about brain cells and actions. Hormones and motivation. Blood sugar and short temper. Alcohol and reduced inhibitions. All sorts of things.
Or perhaps you meant we should never talk about Trump?
But in those cases people are talking about how certain things might have affected the individual. They are not taking about the drunkenness of alcohol molecules, or the short temper of a hormone. They are still talking about the individual themselves.
“But in those cases people are talking about how certain things might have affected the individual. ” Not always, particularly in medical contexts.
“They are not taking about the drunkenness of alcohol molecules, or the short temper of a hormone.”
Because the molecules do not posses those attributes. It is not impossible that collections of individuals possess attributes that are not possessed by individuals.
“Because the molecules do not posses those attributes.”
Bingo, which is precisely why when people refer to other people by name and their actions, they are not objectively referring to their cells. This is contrary to your original claim.
Ok, I think I may get your point. When we talk of a group, we are talking about the individuals doing the same thing we refer to the group as doing. You seem to be saying that groups can only do what individuals can do. Cells cannot get drunk. so when we talk of drunkenness we cannot be talking about cells because cells do not “get drunk”, they only exhibit changed behavior due to changes in chemical concentrations.
But when an army invades, I don’t think we can refer to individuals. Individuals do not really invade – they may move or attack, but invasion is something that can only apply to groups. When we talk of the Army we are not talking of the individuals. The Army of the North remains the Army of the North even if every individual is swapped.
As with cells, when a person gets drunk, we can describe it as their behaviour, or we can describe changes in cell concentrations and the effects on physiology. Which is appropriate depends on our level of understanding and the context. neither is the only way to look at it.
“they are not objectively referring to their cells.” I am not sure what you mean by objectively here. The behavior described implies the processes that lead to that behavior.
As an atheist I certainly have no problem with the idea that humans built religion, in a philosophically similar way to humans building a calculation machine (obviously the structural details are different). Machines are built for various purposes, and one possible purpose is to simulate an intelligence.
As an empiricist, if the simulation of intelligence is convincing enough to do all the tasks a real intelligence can do, then those two are equivalent. The person who built it is no longer significant as to what this machine is.
You might say “the purpose of a system is what it does”, and that might often be similar to the purpose intended by those who built the system, but not necessarily guaranteed to be.
IMHO the purpose of a religion is to make it easier for humans to work together and in particular to ameliorate the damage done by envy and discourage members of that religion from exploiting other members of the same religion (i.e. to search for win/win reciprocal relationships rather than attempting to optimize zero-sum gains). However, there’s a quite reasonable Darwinian argument that the purpose of any meme is to propagate itself. These alternative views are not entirely incompatible… it can do both.
“As an empiricist, if the simulation of intelligence is convincing enough to do all the tasks a real intelligence can do, then those two are equivalent.”
This very popular approach to understanding AI has always struck me as problematic, because it relies on what people believe, rather than what people believe and what is true.
A person can be “convinced” that one concept is indistinguishable from another concept, but for the wrong reasons. A person can be convinced for example that the Sun is indistinguishable from the Moon in the sense that both orbit the Earth. A person can be “convinced” of a whole lot of things that are contradicted by what is in fact the case.
Measuring intelligence and rationality in a totally objective manner is kind of difficult.
Let’s suppose it takes an intelligence, in order to know an intelligence… but what if a whole bunch of different types of intelligence exist? Who gets to measure whom?
We could settle it over a game of chess, but then someone’s iPhone would win.
“A person can be “convinced” that one concept is indistinguishable from another concept, but for the wrong reasons.”
We can be certain of very little. We can assure ourselves that so far the “candidate intelligence” performs exactly as a “real intelligence” would, and so for now we take it that it is real intelligence. We may still be mistaken.
We do this all the time when we talk to other people.
Sure, we do that, except other humans are composed of the same thing I’m composed of.
There is no good reason to think that other humans are fake while I am real. I would not consider you any less real if I learned that you started from a Petri dish outside of a female womb and grown in a lab. It is what you are, not who or what made you.
I’m not sure you guys are getting my modest point in this blog post. Although I have my views about methodological individualism (of course), here I’m just pointing out that Gene seems to be inconsistent. He is adopting a very “reductionist” perspective with respect to computers that ignores common sense. There is a brute fact that “every normal person” recognizes when saying, e.g., that “the computer beat me in chess” versus trying to say “a hammer built that house.” Following Gene’s rhetoric in the comments here, I could say, “Indeed it takes training in computer science to NOT see what is staring us in the face.”
So, if Gene refuses to say that the computer is playing chess, because we can break down its “actions” into the contributions of its human programmers, then why is a methodological individualist out of line for saying that Islam as such doesn’t act, but only individual humans who are Muslim?
You’re right, sorry. I was so hung up on the absurdity of each passage individually that I didn’t see that they weren’t even consistent.
I know its not related to the discussion, but i find it funny that people like gene move the goalposts on AI. Its always something that a computer can’t do. New advances in nueral network research allow computers to learn logics of specific problems without those being specifically programed. Machine learning aproaches the manner that a human learns. Just because we understand it does not disqualify it as intelligence.
Well put.
What if two humans combine an egg and a sperm cell. Grow it for nine months and then teach it to play chess. Is the chess grandmaster then defeated by the team of husband and wife or by their child? Biology is after all merely another technology with which to beat chess masters.
Replace “Islam” and “the State” and I think it’s a much more interesting issue. Sure a lot of Muslims favor bad stuff. On the other hand the local government takes my money and spends it perpetuating failed programs and waging endless war.