Pascal WAS: Effective(?) AI Jail

From: Durant Schoon (durant@ilm.com)
Date: Mon Jun 18 2001 - 09:52:05 MDT


> From: "Evan Reese" <mentat@telocity.com>
>
> Gordon Worley wrote:
> > Not trying to get into a religious debate with you (and Powers know
> > that I don't want to do that ;-)), Pascal didn't exactly have any
> > rational evidence for the existance of god and he knew it, too. We,
> > on other hand, have rational reasons and suggestive evidence (we
> > don't want actual evidence, because that means us getting hosed)
> > an unFriendly AI would be the end of us all.
>
> From what I've read of his writings, there's not much doubt that Pascal knew
> no such thing. He believed in the existence of his god fervently. His
> argument was intended for nonbelievers. His convictions about god were as
> rational to him - and many other people before and since - as your
> fear-based beliefs about the future seem to you.

Side Note:

I haven't read any of Pascal's writing, myself, but when I was reading
Edward O. Wilson's book Consilience, it struck me that Pascal popularized
the idea of Mind/Body Duality AND he was the father of scientific
reductionism!

What incredibly irony, if, in this century, we show that synapses can be
simulated and then reductionism will finally show that "the mind is what
the brain does" (ps - is that Dennet's quote...epiphenomena?...)

--
Durant Schoon


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