[MD] In and out of intellect.

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Ham

13 Dec. wrote:

> Comments on a P.S. -- [Bo, to Mel]: 

> > "PS. It's this self-consciousness issue that prevents Artificial
> > Intelligence to make any breakthrough. It demands/fears an AI to
> > "wake up to consciousness" and say (to itself) "I'm a computer, now I'll
> > take control" This won't happen because SOM has no levels, they may
> > replicate the biological neural network to the least "neuron" but the
> > social level will not emerge and then clearly not the intellectual. NOT
> > that the intellectual level ISs "self-consciousness" far from that, but
> > it's intellect that has invented the subject that the is supposed to be
> > self- conscious."

> What a misconstrued understanding of subjective awareness!
 
> It needs the "social level" to emerge?  And only "THEN" can the 
> "intellectual level" emerge?  "Intellect has INVENTED the subject that
> is SUPPOSED TO BE self-conscious"??
 
> This is the kind of confuscation that makes Pirsig's thesis
> incomprehensible to newcomers and drives me mad!  Could any sane
> person come up with a more complicated explanation of the cognizant
> self?

If a new theory was easily comprehended to newcomers would it then 
be revolutionary? We are about of the same age, do you remember 
the uproar over Einstein's Relativity? It was published around 1900 
(that's a bit early even for us) but somehow it hit the popularity level 
only in the late fifties and sixties and there were reams of books and 
articles on it.  Bertrand Russell said that there were only one person in 
the world besides himself who understood it and that was Einstein. 
Nowadays it's commonly used and its predictions always adds up. 
Even more incomprehensible was/is Quantum Theory, here even 
Einstein refused to go along, but also this is used and invariably  
delivers the right answers.       

> I do hope you recover soon, Bo.

I rise magnanimously above such childish remarks. 
 
> (Time for a cup of Christmas Cheer.)

Cheer? you mean beer?

Bo