geb@cadre.UUCP (01/09/85)
In response to Ken Arndt's response to me: 1. No, I would not stand up and tell Marvin Minsky he doesn't know anything about brains. Neither would I tell Herb Simon, or numerous other AI researchers that. The reason: they know quite a lot about brains, although I'll grant you Eccles may know more. I didn't (and wouldn't) cite Minsky as an authority on brains. 2. You have made a lot of assumptions about both my personal beliefs and my motives for my posting. I was merely pointing out the fallacy of taking a scientist as an authority on matters of religion. Actually science itself should not be based on authority, but on demonstrable, verifiable facts. Religious authority, it would seem, should be based on claims of religious experience, and (in the lines you quoted) Eccles made no such claims. Actually, I would agree with some of what Eccles said, and I certainly don't regard science as able to answer to all questions. 3. As for a world view, I don't see anything incompatible with believing in God(s) and believing that man might create a sentient intelligent artificial intelligence. The only conflict here might be if your religion dogmatically holds that this is impossible. But, I don't see any evidence that morals, beauty, etc., and other emotions need to stem from elsewhere than the brain. In fact, emotions appear to arise from the limbic system, one of the more "primitive" parts of the brain, common to most animals also. 4. I did go to school, actually, but I don't want to put my resume on the net. I'll mail it to you.