rapaport@sunybcs.UUCP (William J. Rapaport) (01/31/84)
The following messages have been received and are being forwarded to net.philosohy for public consumption: >From rocksvax!rochester!seismo!harpo!floyd!akgua!psuvax!bobgian Thu Jan 26 22:55:02 1984 Received: by SEISMO.ARPA (3.342/3.21) id AA01426; 26 Jan 84 15:21:09 EST (Thu) Received: by sen.rochester (3.327.3N) id AA18063; 26 Jan 84 21:43:45 EST (Thu) Message-Id: <8401262021.AA01426@SEISMO.ARPA> Date: 26 Jan 84 15:21:09 EST (Thu) From: rochester!seismo!harpo!floyd!akgua!psuvax!bobgian Subject: Re: AI & philosophy Posted-Date: 26 Jan 84 15:21:09 EST (Thu) Date-Sent: Thu Jan 26 12:04:21 1984\)To: akgua!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!rochester!rocksvax!sunybcs!rapaport In-Reply-To: your article <936@sunybcs.UUCP> Apparently-To: rochester!rocksvax!sunybcs!rapaport Why ISN'T mysticism "philosophy" and worthy of discussion in an AI/ Philosophy of AI discussion? As I see it, AI (and especially my favorite subtopic, machine learning) is VERY closely related to techniques for improving cognitive ablilities in humans, and mysticism ranks high on that list. Comments?? >From rapaport Tue Jan 31 12:16:46 1984 To: rocksvax!rochester!seismo!harpo!floyd!akgua!psuvax!bobgian Subject: Re: AI & philosophy Cc: colonel If we're going to discuss this, we had better define 'mysticism'. I have in mind, roughly, non-rational theories and procedures. >From colonel Tue Jan 31 13:43:14 1984 To: rapaport Subject: AI & philosophy Cc: rocksvax!rochester!seismo!harpo!floyd!akgua!psuvax!bobgian If we're going to discuss this, we had better define 'rational'. Does it mean Baconian? mechanistic? deterministi
unbent@ecsvax.UUCP (02/06/84)
<> Ah yes. "Let us define our terms". Well, 'rational' at least has something to do with *reasons*, and a reason is something other than what it's a reason *for*. 'Rational', then, has to do with a discursive synthesis, a relationship among *several* items (beliefs, judgments, propositions, hypotheses, pieces of evidence, or what have you). 'Mysticism', on the other hand--at least as I'm familiar with it--is constantly sending the message that plurality or multiplicity is somehow an *illusion*. Mysticism insists on a *non-discursive* holism, a "whole" which is *not* a synthesis of parts, but somehow given "all at once" and *falsified* by analysis. The upshot is that it's kind of hard to have a *discussion* with a mystic. Discussion, conversation, argument, and the like are, by their natures, discursive enterprises. What classical mystical literature keeps telling us, however, is "don't talk; just be"--meditate, contemplate, "feel the oneness", "grok essences", etc. *Pace* the colonel, one needn't be Baconian, mechanistic, or deterministic to be 'rational' (a 'rationalist'). One simply needs to be open to engaging in discursive *reasoning*. Some avowed mystics are. Indeed, some avowed mystics purport to arrive at their mysticism as the *conclusion* of reasoning or argumentation. I love chatting with such chaps, but I can't pretend that I understand them. It always looks to me as though they're contradicting themselves. (And sometimes they even agree that they *are*--but then, what's contradiction to a mystic?) Yours for clearer concepts, --Jay Rosenberg (ecsvax!unbent)