Re: Religion Key To AI?

Twirlip of Greymist (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Tue, 22 Oct 1996 16:18:54 -0700 (PDT)


} More seriously, I think the Snow Crash meme/religion/consciousness idea
} is intriguing, even if I don't believe in it. Religion doesn't seem to
} help cognition much, but helps provide an emotional framework. Maybe we
} should see it as an early and somewhat odd cognitive tool?

I've started studying linguistics, and started with Ernst Cassirer's
_Language and myth_ on the grounds that it was short. I think that he
was saying linguistic and mythological development were somewhat linked
in the 'discovery' of concepts and classes. Myth starts with isolated
events and things that awe the viewer; moves to somewhat generalized
functional gods (god of first plowing, god of sowing, god of second
plowing); and thence to more personal and anthromoporphized gods.
Actually I don't think I can well-represent the other side of his
argument, so I won't mutilate it, but considering how animist I was as a
child while considering myself atheist, I wouldn't be shocked if
something religion-like was a part of breaking up the world into things
to perceive.

Merry part,
-xx- Damien R. Sullivan X-) <*> http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix

(I used to mercy-kill my breakfast sausages. After they had been cooked
and all.)