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0 pointsvouwfietsman4y ago0 comments

This is a common fallacy.

Call it moving goalposts, no true Scottsman, the AI effect, whatever. The behavior is as follows: an argument over whether an ill-defined attribute is possessed by a computer is defended or attacked with useless semantics since nobody can agree on what any of the words mean anyway.

Creativity, intelligence, consciousness.

It doesn't matter what you say, you cannot define these concepts with the same clarity you use to defend that the concept is missing.

Saying there is no creativity because its just a neural net extrapolating from data is like saying there's no god because its all just atoms: what is god and why would the existence of atoms have anything to do with it.

Learn from Wittgenstein: Worüber man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen.

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tdehnel4y ago· 2 in thread

This single quote from Wittgenstein might just be the dumbest statement ever made. How would we ever make progress if we did not discuss what we don't understand, and critique and debate new creative ideas?

vouwfietsmanOP4y ago

By not taking the quote literally, but trying to understand it in its context.

The quote is a judgement about what can be logically achieved through discourse, and what cannot (and should not). He draws this boundary to separate the things we can reason about and the things that fall beyond reason and so cannot be reasoned about at all. If you cannot reason about something, you should not bring it up in (philosophical) discourse.

He does this to settle philosophical debates around, for instance, mystical subjects that were fought over to exist or not exist. The conclusion for him is: we do not have the logical tools and concepts to reason about the problem, so we should stop wasting time talking about it.

It's not about lack of knowledge or intelligence, its about acknowledging the limits of reason and discourse, and forgoing any conclusions made beyond those limits. It's a pursuit of truth.

At least, this is how I understand it, I'm not a philosopher.

tdehnel4y ago

It’s not controversial to say we have to stick to reason and logic in the pursuit of truth.

But there is nothing about understanding the difference between human and machine intelligence that is forbidden by any reason or logic that I am aware of.

Certainly there is a lot we don’t know about that topic. But unless that knowledge is specifically blocked by logic or the laws of physics, it is knowable. The only thing missing is the knowledge required to understand it.

The only source of knowledge is conjecture and criticism, and discussion with others is a great tool for that process. The more the better.

So unless you believe we know all there is to know about a topic right now, there is always the possibility that some new knowledge could help us get closer to the objective truth about it. And it’s guaranteed that new knowledge will come from creative new ideas and criticism of existing ideas.

Saying something is unknowable is akin to believing in a mysterious god creator, or fairies. But more importantly, it is a way to stop or limit the progress of our understanding of the universe. It’s like when parents say “because I said so”. It shuts down discourse and understanding and leads to closed societies.

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