Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!rutgers!bellcore!clyde!watmath!isishq!doug From: doug@isishq.UUCP (Doug Thompson) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: The future of AI Message-ID: <62.22E01AE5@isishq.UUCP> Date: 4 Jul 88 04:34:09 GMT Organization: FidoNet node 221/162 - ISIS International, Waterloo ON Lines: 46 elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) writes: > >In message <53.22AB6402@isishq.UUCP>, doug@isishq.UUCP (Doug >Thompson) says: >>>From: elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) >>>So I have little doubt that the human mind IS succeptable to >>>scientific analysis. As to whether it can be modelled (part >3), however, >> >>And therein I think you have expressed the problem clearly. >You have >>little doubt. It was Descartes who said that the only thing >really >>certain to him was his own capacity to doubt. It is critical >to knowing >>anything. I'd refer you to the history of scientific revolutions, >in >>which we find *doubt* is the primary engine of creativity and >new discovery. >Actually, the driving force behind scientific revolutions has >been >EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE. That is, a man may doubt that the sun orbits >the Quite. But a man only hears what he wants to hear. If you aren't looking for evidence, you don't find it. If someone hadn't doubted that the earth was flat, the evidence of its roundness would never have surfaced. It *was* there all along, and even the Classical Greeks knew the Earth was round. I simply wanted to point out that the mind-set with which you undertake an inquiry into the evidence often influences the evidence you'll find. If you have little doubt, you will find little evidence because you won't be looking for it. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Fido 1:221/162 -- 1:221/0 280 Phillip St., UUCP: !watmath!isishq!doug Unit B-3-11 Waterloo, Ontario Bitnet: fido@water Canada N2L 3X1 Internet: doug@isishq.math.waterloo.edu (519) 746-5022 ------------------------------------------------------------------