[comp.ai.philosophy] Oops!

zed@mdbs.uucp (Bill Smith) (10/28/90)

In article <POLLACK.90Oct19175620@dendrite.cis.ohio-state.edu> pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu writes:
>Readers of comp.ai and comp.ai.philosophy:
>
>There are a few dangling references in Marvin's recent note about
>my alleged hostility and anger towards his work:
>
>In 1989, I published a satirical review of Perceptrons'88 in the
>Journal of Mathematical Psychology. (available by anonymous
>ftp as "pub/neuroprose/pollack.perceptrons.ps.Z" on
>cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu.)
>
>Second, yesterday I posted a message in comp.ai.philosophy, a group
>in which Marvin's very participation has stimulated lively debates on
>foundational issues.
>
>Finally, his response to my message showed up in only in comp.ai;
>and I'd like to take this back to philosophy, where it belongs!
>
>-------------------
>Dearest Marvin,
>
>As B.F. Skinner was to you, you still are to me: one of the great heroes
>forming the gestalt of my scientific parent figure. Emulation is a
>compliment; that is one of the reasons why I emulated the rhetorical
>structure and humorous prose style of your prologue and epilogue in
>my review of Perceptrons'88. Another reason is that the book
>deserved such a review.
>
>Regarding the discussions in comp.ai.philosophy: Other than David
>Chalmers, the people participating in that group were letting you get
>away with murder: Severe connectionist-bashing propaganda announcing
>"Dead-End" for the entire field extrapolating from the simple model of
>three-layer back-prop nets. 
>
>After responding to your attacks (my points 1-4 which you did not
>respond to) I did caricature your remark that "traditional AI lies in
>the genetic specifications", and I did end with a wisecracking
>allusion to your oft-quoted line about holism "haunting the young
>engineering field of AI." I thought this well within the bounds of
>network newsgroup civility, as well as the tenor of the ongoing
>discussions in comp.ai.philosophy, and I'm sorry to have hurt your
>feelings so much.  I am not angry, bear no grudges, and will try to be
>more temperate in any future defenses of connectionism.
>
>--
>Jordan Pollack                            Assistant Professor
>CIS Dept/OSU                              Laboratory for AI Research
>2036 Neil Ave                             Email: pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu
>Columbus, OH 43210                        Fax/Phone: (614) 292-4890

A Philistine!!!! :-)

Now you have made a complete asshole of me because I jumped into a
discussion that was ridiculous.

Academia is a pile of sh*t.  It is accreted piece by piece.  The trouble
with piles of sh*t is that occasionaly a cow may jump into them and
die of exposure because they don't know of the danger.  Cattle are
valuable.  When my father, Mike Smith Jr., was a dairy farmer, we lost
at least one cow because a fence broke.  I don't mourn the cow, because
it is a stupid beast and it was my father's fault for building such a
shoddy fence, but people should not die of exposure in a pile of sh*t.

Galileo for example died of exposure in the pile of sh*t that is the
Roman Catholic Church.

Martin Luther King, Jr. died a martyr in the pile of sh*t that is racism.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. died because of jealousy, adultery and because
	he couldn't see that he was leading Marilyn Monroe to her suicide
	with a drug called his penis.

It isn't right.

Intellgence is *never* artificial.  If it were, it would not be intelligence,
it would be a cartoon of one person being simulated and parodied in a piece
of cellophane. (A joke, a stupid pun.)

Wake up people.  You are all addicts.   You don't know what you need.
You don't know what is good for yourself, let alone what is good for
your children, your students, your computers, your textbooks, or anything else
that you help create.   If it is a pile of sh*t and you know that it is
a pile of sh*t, why don't you at least recycle it to grow a flower or two?

Make someone smile.  Make me smile.  Make yourself smile.  If you can't
smile, I'll make a joke that you can't resist.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. Why did the first truly Artificially Intelligent computer turn itself 
	off?

A. People weren't ready to find out that they weren't intelligent
	enough to answer the computer's first question: "Where did I
	come from?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Bill Smith
pur-ee!mdbs!zed