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View Poll Results: Asimov's Laws a Requirement? Preferable?
Yes 4 50.00%
No 4 50.00%
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  #61  
Old 02-11-2007, 02:44 AM
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To recap, Val's points are:

1) Do robots count as self-aware, and/or as living?
2) Do we have the right to control what they think?

As of now:

1) No.
2) Yes...well, sort of. Control HOW they think, control HOW MUCH they can think, that sort of thing.
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Old 02-11-2007, 04:01 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability View Post
Last time I checked, the poll was fifty-fifty. Any comment? Expected? Unexpected? Surprising? Not surprising?
What was the question, again?
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  #63  
Old 02-11-2007, 08:43 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability View Post
To recap, Val's points are:

1) Do robots count as self-aware, and/or as living?
2) Do we have the right to control what they think?

As of now:

1) No.
2) Yes...well, sort of. Control HOW they think, control HOW MUCH they can think, that sort of thing.

Thank's for the recap, II.

Though to add my final point:

Do we even have the right to create such things?

And would you care to elaborate on your answers?
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  #64  
Old 02-11-2007, 11:33 PM
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Again I reinterate: Please no II! II is Roman for two! I'm not a two! If you can't say "Nate," use "NTG."

1) Well, robots today don't count as self-aware OR living because I'd define those two terms as:
Self-aware: Posessing the knowledge of who and what you are, what you can and can't do (in general), and knowing what is required to stay functional.
Living: Experiencing a life. "Life" being defined as a state of experience and growth, influencing other lives.
2) Well, to use a human analogy (and what else do we have, really?), we already influence how each other thinks. Media, hackneyed saying, fivers, etc. are all used in an attempt to make each other "wear our shoes," for lack of a better term. If there really are computers that satisfy 1), then we have the right to influence their thoughts, and they'd have the right to influence ours.
3) Okay, put on your explorer hats and prepare to dash out of the Temple of Doom, dudes and dudettes! Uh, who would take away our "right" to create thinking robots? After all, if we can create machines capable of genuine thought, that'd be the final nail in the coffin of evolution. God would be superfluous. Souls wouldn't exist. After all, if mechanical machines can think, then so can organic machines, and we're just the result of millions of years of trial and error by random forces trying to slap a thinking machine together.
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  #65  
Old 02-12-2007, 02:34 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability View Post
To recap, Val's points are:

1) Do robots count as self-aware, and/or as living?
2) Do we have the right to control what they think?
1. No.
2. By necessity we must. We are the ones who enable computers to think on any level. Otherwise they do not think. Telling a computer how to think is a form of controlling, but the term conjures up inappropriate imagery. We direct what they think. They do things according to the program we provide. Will that ever change? I don't know, but if it does it will be a fundamentally different piece of software than anything we have yet written.

Quote:
Do we even have the right to create such things?
I don't see why we shouldn't, but for opposite reasons than Nate. We already create intelligences as powerful as our own through our begetting, and few people have problems with that. And the idea of creating (as opposed to begetting) something in our own image is a powerful one. Some might say it smacks of playing God, but ... <insert long, uninteresting, theological discussion here>.

Quote:
3) Okay, put on your explorer hats and prepare to dash out of the Temple of Doom, dudes and dudettes! Uh, who would take away our "right" to create thinking robots? After all, if we can create machines capable of genuine thought, that'd be the final nail in the coffin of evolution.
Okay, the "final nail" sounds like it would kill off evolution as a viable theory, but that obviously isn't what you mean.

Quote:
God would be superfluous. Souls wouldn't exist. After all, if mechanical machines can think, then so can organic machines, and we're just the result of millions of years of trial and error by random forces trying to slap a thinking machine together.
1. I don't see how a thinking machine would make God superfluous. If anything it would support the idea that only intelligences can create intelligence.
^ Gah. That just sounds like I'm asking for an origins debate, but I'm really REALLY not.

2. Souls are a loose term that gets defined too many ways to treat intelligently. Suffice to say a thinking machine would not make everyone suddenly say, "Well, I guess souls don't exist after all," but only expand the debate as to whether machines have them too.
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  #66  
Old 02-12-2007, 05:44 AM
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Difficult.

Currently, robots are neither self-aware nor living. I can see how both would be possible, though.

I'm not certain you can "control" a self-aware robot. You can give him guidelines or orders, but I think the point is that a self-aware robot doesn't need to be controlled - it can make it's own judgements. It is in our best interests to provide a framework of principles so that its judgement benefits us, but creating a robot that is both fully self-aware and directly under our thumb is inefficient and cruel - it could just as well be done by a less-developed robot. Like I said, if we get there, we'll *want* a robot that can think (relatively) freely. Heck, there's good money riding on making it think as free as we can - who knows, AI may come up with some interesting ideas that a human would never get.

Do we have the right to create AI, if we can? Yes. The potential benefit for mankind is far too great to just outright ban AI; I'm sure there'll be some squabbling over what you can and can't do, but it's becoming clearer to me that technological development cannot be regulated as tightly as some people think. If you can come up with an idea, somebody else can, too. And there's always people willing to break laws if they think they'll benefit from it. Unless you want to go around assassinating everyone who develops a workable AI, you won't stop it. From this, I guess it doesn't follow directly that we have a *right* to do this - but I do think it follows that we have a *responsibility* to do it correctly.

Who says God can't exist if we create AI? We've archieved so much, and He apparently hasn't seen fit to smite us yet. When the bible says that God created us in His image, it makes me think that what He really wants is for His children to grow up - like any good parent.

Same thing with souls. I don't believe in them, but I see no reason why AI would disprove them. First off, we don't know what a soul is, so it could very well be that with creating AI, we also create souls. Even if we don't, all we've proven is that you can make intelligence without souls, but that doesn't mean we don't have them. It's the same argument as saying that we share common ancestors with other primates somehow makes us less special and "soulless". It just doesn't logically follow.

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  #67  
Old 02-12-2007, 06:53 AM
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Yeah, I meant, "coffin of creationism." My bad.

Okay, maybe we should define "control what robots think." It suddenly occurs to me that we can't really do that. Maybe we can establish directives about what a robot can DO, but think? How? Lines of programming that say in essense "stop all processing once harming a human is presented as a course of action"?

Actually, if we're talking about current robots, they aren't even close. Every single robot we have these days either follows a complicated chain of instructions (maybe the chain branches, but true thought requires the ability to leave the chain entirely) or is basically a complicated remote control toy. Even Asimo is in the latter category right now.
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  #68  
Old 02-12-2007, 12:20 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability View Post
Again I reinterate: Please no II! II is Roman for two! I'm not a two! If you can't say "Nate," use "NTG."
Then don't call me Val

'Val' is short for 'Valentine', which is neither my real name nor the name I go by anywhere on the web.

'Valium'/'CV', or if you prefer formality, 'Chancellor' will do nicely.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability
1) Well, robots today don't count as self-aware OR living because I'd define those two terms as:
Self-aware: Posessing the knowledge of who and what you are, what you can and can't do (in general), and knowing what is required to stay functional.
Living: Experiencing a life. "Life" being defined as a state of experience and growth, influencing other lives.
I thought that this thread was rather more forward-looking than just the present...?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability
2) Well, to use a human analogy (and what else do we have, really?), we already influence how each other thinks. Media, hackneyed saying, fivers, etc. are all used in an attempt to make each other "wear our shoes," for lack of a better term. If there really are computers that satisfy 1), then we have the right to influence their thoughts, and they'd have the right to influence ours.
Yeah, it's all a method of control, man!

Seriously, do we have the right to PROGRAMME GUIDELINES into a thinking brain.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability
3) Okay, put on your explorer hats and prepare to dash out of the Temple of Doom, dudes and dudettes! Uh, who would take away our "right" to create thinking robots? After all, if we can create machines capable of genuine thought, that'd be the final nail in the coffin of evolution. God would be superfluous. Souls wouldn't exist. After all, if mechanical machines can think, then so can organic machines, and we're just the result of millions of years of trial and error by random forces trying to slap a thinking machine together.
Nope. Assuming there is a God, what right do we have to create life? Surely it would be His divine right, and His alone? Obviously I can't prove this, but neither can you disprove it. And call me Pascal, but I'd rather not risk it.

There's also the question of whether we can create life itself, and also, why do we *need* androids and sentient robots?

Re: the second part of part three: Prove Godless evolution to me without reference to the phenomenal (see also: Kant).
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  #69  
Old 02-12-2007, 01:29 PM
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Originally Posted by Chancellor Valium View Post
Then don't call me Val

Seriously, do we have the right to PROGRAMME GUIDELINES into a thinking brain.
Well, we teach our kids not to kill their playground buddies to get their toys. Laugh all you want, but what reason would a blank slate AI have to think that it's bad to kill others?

Then again, there's a difference between having Asimov-esque laws hardcoded into your brain or being taught morality.

Quote:

Nope. Assuming there is a God, what right do we have to create life? Surely it would be His divine right, and His alone? Obviously I can't prove this, but neither can you disprove it. And call me Pascal, but I'd rather not risk it.
Forgive me if this sounds silly, but by the same token, I could live in mortal fear of ever cracking an emu egg because I believe the space cats will eat me if I do. I don't know if there's a God; what I do know is that He hasn't really left us any concrete guidelines on the topic. (And that's under the assumption that we believe the Bible to be His word - bring other religions into it and you'll be lucky if you can agree on why the sun shines.)

Quote:
There's also the question of whether we can create life itself, and also, why do we *need* androids and sentient robots?
Ask a medieval Samurai what you can do with an autoloading rifle, or the IBM guys in the 50s what the hell a microchip is good for. If there's one pattern in technology, it's that a lot of what we know came from cocking about and doing things because we could. In a lot of cases, we had the invention first and then found out about the neat things we could do with it.

Quote:
Re: the second part of part three: Prove Godless evolution to me without reference to the phenomenal (see also: Kant).
Evolution is easy to show, it's abiogenesis that's hard.

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Old 02-12-2007, 07:26 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatac View Post
Well, we teach our kids not to kill their playground buddies to get their toys. Laugh all you want, but what reason would a blank slate AI have to think that it's bad to kill others?

Then again, there's a difference between having Asimov-esque laws hardcoded into your brain or being taught morality.
Exactly the difference I was referring to
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Originally Posted by Gatac
Forgive me if this sounds silly, but by the same token, I could live in mortal fear of ever cracking an emu egg because I believe the space cats will eat me if I do.
Better watch those space cats - when riled they're pretty dangerous. And they have *big* claws...

Seriously, difference is, space cats didn't create, if we follow the assumption that there is a God implicit in this particular end of the discussion, the emu egg in the first place.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatac
I don't know if there's a God; what I do know is that He hasn't really left us any concrete guidelines on the topic. (And that's under the assumption that we believe the Bible to be His word
I'd say the teaching of Jesus was pretty damn clear, myself...
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Originally Posted by Gatac
- bring other religions into it and you'll be lucky if you can agree on why the sun shines.)
I think the question would more be who put the sun there, who pushes it around, why it does, why it's not in any other shape or form, where it goes, and who slept with whom in order to create it...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatac
Ask a medieval Samurai what you can do with an autoloading rifle,
Not the best advert for the advancement of technology, it must be said. But fundamentally, do we *need* an autoloading rifle? A musket will do just as well in the end.
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Originally Posted by Gatac
or the IBM guys in the 50s what the hell a microchip is good for. If there's one pattern in technology, it's that a lot of what we know came from cocking about and doing things because we could. In a lot of cases, we had the invention first and then found out about the neat things we could do with it.
True, but when the M or the E word come into the question, suddenly you aren't just cocking about with the neat things you could do if you tweak this or that -the implications grow uncomfortably.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatac
Evolution is easy to show, it's abiogenesis that's hard.
Without reference to the phenomenal?
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  #71  
Old 02-12-2007, 07:32 PM
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We have the right to teach our children, how are robots any different?

I don't think we need thinking robots, either.

Could we close the door on the whole creationism/evolutionism thing, please?
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Old 02-12-2007, 08:40 PM
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Okay, point by point...

- Point taken.
- Who says the space cats didn't create the emu egg? Their ways are wise and terrible. In a wider point, why does being the creator matter? For the sake of the argument, we assume that the space cats have some sort of interested in unbroken emu eggs and have the power to punish you if you go against their wishes. The scenario does not require that they actually created anything.
- While I don't claim to be a biblical scholar, I must admit that I don't recall any part of the bible that says "Thou shalt not create an artificially intelligent machine". Everything more metaphorical than that is, I would argue, subject to the interpretation of the reader. (A notorious problem of text in general.)
- There's a couple things even I don't want to know about the sun.
- Okay, Samurai were a bit luddite-ish, but I don't think they were stupid. If they'd had the tech to build reliable autoloaders and the infrastructure to support them, they'd have done so. Autoloading rifles, by the way, are an integral part of modern military tactics. In a wider context (considering the idea of an autoloading machine gun, as it was originally constructed by Hiram Maxim), it forms the basis of what we today consider an effective infantry fighting force. Even if there'd been no autoloaders, we wouldn't have stopped at muskets. Consider that Germany spent much of WW2 fielding bolt-action rifles, which - while nowhere near as impressive as autoloaders - would totally devastate an army dependant on single-shot breech loaders. Don't even start on muzzle-loading muskets - helpless case, especially when we assume muskets use the (much inferior) black powder rather than the smokeless powders used from the 19th Century on.
- Dude, microchips are directly at fault for affordable personal computing, the internet and the rise of IT. I don't see Evolution getting much better at making your head spin with implications.
- Considering that my understanding of Kant's "phenomenon" is that we can't perceive things as they actually are, I see no way anything can ever be explained without resorting to your observations of the world rather than some mystical knowledge of the true nature of reality. Everything we know, we perceived first. The challenge seems meaningless to me.

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  #73  
Old 02-13-2007, 05:06 AM
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Okay, color me lost. Moving on...
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Old 02-13-2007, 10:16 AM
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@Nate: Any particular shade?
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Originally Posted by Gatac View Post
Okay, point by point...

- Point taken.
- Who says the space cats didn't create the emu egg? Their ways are wise and terrible. In a wider point, why does being the creator matter? For the sake of the argument, we assume that the space cats have some sort of interested in unbroken emu eggs and have the power to punish you if you go against their wishes. The scenario does not require that they actually created anything.
You mean aside from their total lack of relevant technology or indeed plain old conventional wisdom? Or the fact that their sublight craft would take 45bn years to get to Sirius, let alone our system. Finally, they're cats. Why do the hard work when someone else can, and then you can simply steal it off them at minimal effort?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatac
- While I don't claim to be a biblical scholar, I must admit that I don't recall any part of the bible that says "Thou shalt not create an artificially intelligent machine". Everything more metaphorical than that is, I would argue, subject to the interpretation of the reader. (A notorious problem of text in general.)
Provided you don't understand the context and background to the text, yes. Factor those in, however, and the choices of meaning narrow a lot. Fact is, there's a lot of people you would upset over this, either for being unnatural or unnecessary, or too expensive for the bother, or simply opening too many uncomfortable parallels with fiction, or because of the ethical implications.
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- There's a couple things even I don't want to know about the sun.
Having (not) gone for a look, I can tell you with complete (lack of) authority that it is in fact (not) pushed about by a Scarab beetle.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatac
- Okay, Samurai were a bit luddite-ish, but I don't think they were stupid. If they'd had the tech to build reliable autoloaders and the infrastructure to support them, they'd have done so. Autoloading rifles, by the way, are an integral part of modern military tactics. In a wider context (considering the idea of an autoloading machine gun, as it was originally constructed by Hiram Maxim), it forms the basis of what we today consider an effective infantry fighting force. Even if there'd been no autoloaders, we wouldn't have stopped at muskets. Consider that Germany spent much of WW2 fielding bolt-action rifles, which - while nowhere near as impressive as autoloaders - would totally devastate an army dependant on single-shot breech loaders. Don't even start on muzzle-loading muskets - helpless case, especially when we assume muskets use the (much inferior) black powder rather than the smokeless powders used from the 19th Century on.
Still, what benefit did all these developments in weaponry from the time of Napoleon onwards give us that was positive? There is an argument that weapon development is a direct cause of the horrors of WWI...
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- Dude, microchips are directly at fault for affordable personal computing, the internet and the rise of IT. I don't see Evolution getting much better at making your head spin with implications.
Well, in broad terms, yes, but I was referring more specifically to ethically and morally...
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- Considering that my understanding of Kant's "phenomenon" is that we can't perceive things as they actually are, I see no way anything can ever be explained without resorting to your observations of the world rather than some mystical knowledge of the true nature of reality. Everything we know, we perceived first. The challenge seems meaningless to me.
Exactly. So are our perceptions right? How can we tell? The point was that we are far from omnipotent...
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Old 02-13-2007, 03:05 PM
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- Without starting a big religious debate, I find felionoid aliens with over-c drive tech and some sort of horribly powerful weaponry in our orbit a lesser probability abberation than an omnipotent being...

- That's not my point. Yes, knowing the historical background, several things are easier to interpret in the bible. However: a) that doesn't mean it is actually being interpreted correctly *now*, b) it still doesn't say anything we could reasonably interpret to concern AI, c) the opinions of the people you mention are not derived from the bible, hence it is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if you believe in the bible or not when you're against AI, because AI hatred is not a tenet of your religion.

- Heretic! It's clearly being pulled by a winged horse!

- Aside from being a nice strawman (Technology can be used for evil? The horror!), I'd actually argue that autoloaders are part of a positive overall trend in military manners toward smarter, fewer, more trained soldiers. Obviously, war is still hell, but atleast they're not rounding up the farmers for a crusade where half will die marching on their way, not to mention being probably killed in actual combat for lack of training and equipment. I hate war as much as the next guy, but when it is fought, we should use the best weapons we have so it is over quickly and decided with the least loss of life. I'm not usually one to argue "The good of the many outweighs the good of the few", but take the use of nuclear weapons over Hiroshima and Nagasaki; it sucked, it sucked hard, and it was a horrible thing to do - but it doesn't remotely compare to the horror that would have been a conventional invasion of Japan.

- Ah, sorry. Misunderstood you. Is it ethically and morally right? I don't know, we're discussing that now, aren't we? You're sounding like it's a foregone conclusion of wrongness on the ethical/moral scale and just pursued for the potential scientific/economic perks. I'd disagree with that.

- Does being the product of an omnipotent creator (should we believe in Him) mean that, being less than omnipotent, we can't create life? That doesn't logically follow. Even statistically speaking, we don't have enough sample cases to say it's probably so. (Unless you're going for hardcore creationism, where God made every species individually.) It's a statement about as logically rigid as arguing that being able to create new life would make us omnipotent.

Gatac
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Old 02-13-2007, 04:22 PM
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Originally Posted by Gatac View Post
- Without starting a big religious debate, I find felionoid aliens with over-c drive tech and some sort of horribly powerful weaponry in our orbit a lesser probability abberation than an omnipotent being...
Without starting a religious debate, why? I'm not saying your wrong necessarily, but I'm curious why they would necessarily be more likely to exist than an omnipotent being. And for the record, their tech is appalling. Partly because it's all scavenged, partly the lack of opposable thumbs.
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Originally Posted by Gatac
- That's not my point. Yes, knowing the historical background, several things are easier to interpret in the bible. However: a) that doesn't mean it is actually being interpreted correctly *now*,
...Unless you have a tradition of doctrine which has developed from before the Bible was compiled, and your belief structure was around at the time when it was all written, ensuring the passing on of knowledge about precisely what key passages me.
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Originally Posted by Gatac
b) it still doesn't say anything we could reasonably interpret to concern AI,
It would be no more difficult than, say, extrapolating a logically highly probably position on AI from a Virtue Ethics standpoint, though...

The Tower of Babel could be seen as (very, very loosely) analogous (HTF do you spell this word?! Grr.) to AI. Granted, its not a perfect fit, but given that in all probability, no-one in Judaeism up until at least 70 AD would have in all probability had the faintest idea about an artificial mind...
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Originally Posted by Gatac
c) the opinions of the people you mention are not derived from the bible, hence it is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if you believe in the bible or not when you're against AI, because AI hatred is not a tenet of your religion.
How do you know they aren't derived from their interpretation? And the point is, from that interpretation you are going to pull out a whole can of worms...
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- Heretic! It's clearly being pulled by a winged horse!
That's not a winged horse! It's the Butterfly of Chaos, trying to distract the Scarab from its sacral duty!
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Originally Posted by Gatac
- Aside from being a nice strawman (Technology can be used for evil? The horror!), I'd actually argue that autoloaders are part of a positive overall trend in military manners toward smarter, fewer, more trained soldiers. Obviously, war is still hell, but atleast they're not rounding up the farmers for a crusade where half will die marching on their way, not to mention being probably killed in actual combat for lack of training and equipment.
Are we killing fewer, though, in an age of total war?

And as for 'crusades', I thought I'd point out, without entering into this equally lead-balloon-shaped subject, that the 'Crusades' were largely done by volunteers.

While I don't like the developments made in the French Revolutionary Wars (and Napoleon's 'tactics', if you could call them that...), yes, they involved many more men, but in some ways only took longer because the French had military strength but economic weakness by comparison to their enemies...
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Originally Posted by Gatac
I hate war as much as the next guy, but when it is fought, we should use the best weapons we have so it is over quickly and decided with the least loss of life. I'm not usually one to argue "The good of the many outweighs the good of the few", but take the use of nuclear weapons over Hiroshima and Nagasaki; it sucked, it sucked hard, and it was a horrible thing to do - but it doesn't remotely compare to the horror that would have been a conventional invasion of Japan.
Really? You've seen that, have you?
And also, there are other ways to skin a space-cat...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatac
- Ah, sorry. Misunderstood you. Is it ethically and morally right? I don't know, we're discussing that now, aren't we? You're sounding like it's a foregone conclusion of wrongness on the ethical/moral scale and just pursued for the potential scientific/economic perks. I'd disagree with that.
I'm saying that rightly or wrongly a lot of people will see it that way.
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Originally Posted by Gatac
- Does being the product of an omnipotent creator (should we believe in Him) mean that, being less than omnipotent, we can't create life? That doesn't logically follow. Even statistically speaking, we don't have enough sample cases to say it's probably so. (Unless you're going for hardcore creationism, where God made every species individually.) It's a statement about as logically rigid as arguing that being able to create new life would make us omnipotent.

Gatac
The point was more about scientific hubris... *ducks pelting with rotten blowfish*
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Old 02-13-2007, 05:11 PM
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- My take on Ockham's Razor, basically - an omnipotent being is the most complex assumption possible, therefore everything that is less complex has a greater chance of actually being true. I could drag the Second Law of Thermodynamics into the debate, but it really doesn't deserve that. I'll admit it's more bellyfeel than rigorous scientific examination.

- Which clearly hasn't happened with the Bible, what with its myriad translations and reinterpretations. Leaving aside the issue that the modern bible is a rather arbitary collection of texts the First Council of Nicaea decided should be in it - got pretty political back then, as I recall. I don't think it's the only example, either...Christianity has gone through some changes in the years, and while I'll admit that most are relatively minor, I'd also dispute that it's always been what it is today.

- The tower of babel? Hm, I can see your point, but that's extremely metaphorical, even by bible standards. I'd counter that the whole "Be fruitful and multiply" thing could be understood to mean the opposite, if we're operating on that level. I'm of the opinion that, if God can hand down His wisdom once, he can do it again. So either we're due for some errata or He doesn't care, because I have a hard time believing that an omniscient being couldn't foresee we'd get to that point. As for the 70 AD guys not understanding adaptive software, there could be something like "Do not seek to build a soul from clay". I doubt they would've gotten it, but they'd have carried it further - perhaps as a warning against witchcraft or something, it's certainly much more transparent than, say, Revelations -, and *that* would be a bible quote I could get behind as warning against AI.

- At that point, it's not interpretation, it's pulling things out of thin air. There's nothing in the bible that supports anything even remotely like an AI ban - if anything, it calls for a general anti-tech stance. That one's okay, but specifically AI?

- Cute little butterfly. At least it's not causing hurricanes this time.

- Uh, yeah, we're killing a whole buncha less people now, particularly relative to how many people there are now.

Fair enough on the crusades, but I understand that much of the kingdom-to-kingdom fighting was done using conscripted serfs led by a small core of knights and professional warriors.

As for wars taking longer then, let's not forget the advances in mobility we've made. You could blow Bonaparte's mind if you told him he could have thousands of well-trained soldiers deployed anywhere on Earth within 48 hours...

- I admit it's some speculation, but I'm hardly alone in that. The plans taking this into account were derived from experience in fighting the Japanese on other Pacific islands, and assuming that they'd be much more defensive still about their home islands. With estimates at about 12 million people dead for a conventional assault, I think you can make a very favorable analysis of the decision to use nuclear weapons. Of course, we can argue about how they were used...I'm just saying that I think a conventional invasion would have been much worse, based on our best knowledge of Japanese tactics and mindset at the time.

- No argument here. I'm interested in your opinion, though.

- Hubris? What hubris? Science is infallible! It is perfect! MWUAHAHAHAHA! *thunder and lightning*

...seriously, though. I understand, but we didn't get all the way up here by sitting in our caves and hoping for sunshine. We went out, we took risks, we won some and we lost some. There are no safe bets, and I think one of our strengths as a species is our dedication to ideas and taking risks to make them real. (Then again, we may just be boneheaded.)

Gatac
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Old 02-13-2007, 06:37 PM
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Originally Posted by Gatac View Post
- My take on Ockham's Razor, basically - an omnipotent being is the most complex assumption possible, therefore everything that is less complex has a greater chance of actually being true. I could drag the Second Law of Thermodynamics into the debate, but it really doesn't deserve that. I'll admit it's more bellyfeel than rigorous scientific examination.
I unbellyfeel this. But for the sake of Peace, Tranquility, and The Accursed Power of Zeke, perhaps it would be best to let sleeping metaphysical questions lie.
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Originally Posted by Gatac
- Which clearly hasn't happened with the Bible, what with its myriad translations and reinterpretations. Leaving aside the issue that the modern bible is a rather arbitary collection of texts the First Council of Nicaea decided should be in it
Not so. The arguments for inclusion were in part that they fit in with Church doctrine (which, as founded upon Christ, if we take that stand-point that it is correct in this instance), and also to be authentic (of origin from at least a time roughly correct), apostolic (of origin with the writing of an apostle), etc. There is evidence that even before writing down, these works were handed down orally (or aurally?). If these are the most important things in your life, you make sure you memorise them perfectly...

There is quite clearly a development of doctrine going on from Paul onwards in the 40's AD, if not from earlier, as the Apostles spread the Word. The Acts of the Apostles also contains interesting nuggets of teaching, and it is interesting to note that Pliny et. al. paint a picture of Christianity which is very much in line with what is still the official stance(s) of the major Churches today...
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Originally Posted by Gatac
- The tower of babel? Hm, I can see your point, but that's extremely metaphorical, even by bible standards. I'd counter that the whole "Be fruitful and multiply" thing could be understood to mean the opposite, if we're operating on that level. I'm of the opinion that, if God can hand down His wisdom once, he can do it again. So either we're due for some errata or He doesn't care, because I have a hard time believing that an omniscient being couldn't foresee we'd get to that point.
There is the old pseudo-joke about the man up to his ankles in water...
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Originally Posted by Gatac
As for the 70 AD guys not understanding adaptive software, there could be something like "Do not seek to build a soul from clay". I doubt they would've gotten it, but they'd have carried it further - perhaps as a warning against witchcraft or something, it's certainly much more transparent than, say, Revelations -, and *that* would be a bible quote I could get behind as warning against AI.
But what would be the relevance to them? Besides, it might have been seen as unimportant, or indeed not central to the message of Good News and omitted by one of the Evangelists...
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Originally Posted by Gatac
- At that point, it's not interpretation, it's pulling things out of thin air. There's nothing in the bible that supports anything even remotely like an AI ban - if anything, it calls for a general anti-tech stance. That one's okay, but specifically AI?
Possibly. If I was bothered to search the Bible and/or Church published documents for the last 2 millennia, I'm sure I could find a relevant quote somewhere.

It could also be argued (and please, let's drop this particular one at this particular comment - I implore you on bended knee not to continue this particular discussion!) that if man has not the right to take away life, then he also doesn't have the right to give it...But as I said this is a can of worms that arguing over will only bring negative effects, IMO.
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Originally Posted by Gatac
- Cute little butterfly. At least it's not causing hurricanes this time.
...Just trying to crash the Sun into the Earth and then to feast upon our brains...
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Originally Posted by Gatac
- Uh, yeah, we're killing a whole buncha less people now, particularly relative to how many people there are now.
I beg to differ. Remind me how many fairly large wars there have been in the last ten years? Is it three or four?
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Originally Posted by Gatac
Fair enough on the crusades, but I understand that much of the kingdom-to-kingdom fighting was done using conscripted serfs led by a small core of knights and professional warriors.
Yeah, but we're looking at numbers in the thousands for a *big* army...
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Originally Posted by Gatac
As for wars taking longer then, let's not forget the advances in mobility we've made. You could blow Bonaparte's mind if you told him he could have thousands of well-trained soldiers deployed anywhere on Earth within 48 hours...
True, but would you want Bonaparte able to deploy anywhere in 48hrs?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatac
- I admit it's some speculation, but I'm hardly alone in that. The plans taking this into account were derived from experience in fighting the Japanese on other Pacific islands, and assuming that they'd be much more defensive still about their home islands. With estimates at about 12 million people dead for a conventional assault, I think you can make a very favorable analysis of the decision to use nuclear weapons. Of course, we can argue about how they were used...I'm just saying that I think a conventional invasion would have been much worse, based on our best knowledge of Japanese tactics and mindset at the time.
There were other options, and it wasn't just an attempt to make the Japanese shut up and surrender - it was a challenge to the rest of the world, too.
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Originally Posted by Gatac
- No argument here. I'm interested in your opinion, though.
I'm of the opinion that this is a suck-it-and-see situation...If push comes to shove, though, I'm of the opinion that its economically a bad thing, opens a moral/ethical can of worms, could be hell to deal with and that there's a small chance that we'd all be murdered at our cerebral interface ports.
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Originally Posted by Gatac
- Hubris? What hubris? Science is infallible! It is perfect! MWUAHAHAHAHA! *thunder and lightning*

...seriously, though. I understand, but we didn't get all the way up here by sitting in our caves and hoping for sunshine. We went out, we took risks, we won some and we lost some. There are no safe bets, and I think one of our strengths as a species is our dedication to ideas and taking risks to make them real. (Then again, we may just be boneheaded.)

Gatac
True, but it still doesn't mean that science is necessarily better than other belief systems, as it is more and more frequently put forward...
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Old 02-13-2007, 07:12 PM
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- Okay, no more metaphysics. I don't think we'll agree with each other there, anyway. Still, it's been an interesting discussion so far.

- The way I understand it, the council's chief bone of contention was the issue of the Holy Trinity versus the one God above all. As I recall, the Holy Trinity won out, but this was by no means uncontroversial at the time.

What about all the splinter groups of Christianity?

- Fortunately, I can swim.

- What's the relevance of the various biblical stories of people's exploits, especially when there's no clear moral? What's the relevance of Revelations when you're not in altered states of consciousness? I think the modern bible contains plenty of passages that border on being almost impenetrable; a warning against a sort of witchcraft seems almost like an oasis of straightforwardness.

I'm not saying the bible is unreadable, far from it, but I do think passages that don't make any immedeate sense to the reader have been retained for a long time. I can't discount that something might have been dropped, of course. But if I approached the bible as "Let's cut this down to the basics", there's other stuff I'd kick out first. My subjective view, of course.

- Yes, let's not get into the take life / give life thing.

- A zombie butterfly?

- The conflicts we have now are terrible, but I think it can be argued with some success that they a) do not approach the level of total warfare we saw in, say, the Thirty Years war and such, b) are fought by less developed nations we have, in a way, uplifted to our tech level without giving them the time to adjust their culture. (I know, big big BIG minefield...)

- Given the area and population density of the small kingdoms involved, that would still be a very sizeable percentage of the serfs.

- I'm saying he would've gotten a few good ideas on using that as a force multiplier, but I have a firm policy on not exporting tech to the past, so we'll never find out.

- What other options? Cut off shipping and starve out the civilians? Surrender to Japan, maybe? Like I said, it was a shopping mall of suck and they went with the lesser evil.

- Fair enough, though I think the economic potential is mostly positive.

- I beg to differ, but I'd rather not have a "Science is not Religion" debate here.

Gatac
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Old 02-14-2007, 10:43 PM
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I wish I could respond with a valid addition to this discussion, but I can't. I guess I got Captain Style's faulty transwarp engine and can't keep up.
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