Re: Failure of AI a prediction of Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age"

Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Mon, 21 Dec 1998 22:03:33 -0800

> Christophe Delriviere wrote: I'm not sure, but i think there is a majority
> of atheists in this list... could you call it open minded?

not necessarily. openmindedness is partially an expression of congnitive dissonance. on the topic of religion, i am an atheist. i have no cognitive dissonance, consequently, i tend towards closed mindedness on that topic.

> What if somebody bring you a good scientific paper wich is a proof of the
> existence of god ? What will you do ?

um... pray to that author? i may have moved right from fundamentalist to atheist on over to agnostic, i dont know.

the agnostic acknowledges a possibility of an unknown god, which is tempting to me more these days. consider: what if another society elsewhere and elsewhen develops strong ai and nanotech, and makes itself into a jupiter brain, or whatever. (see what i learn from you guys? {8^D ) i have no reason to exclude the possibility that such a "god" has evolved somewhere and it hasnt found us yet. perhaps it is outside our light cone. spike