mabub24

5 ms·

1.
by mabub24 4y ago
There are a lot of responses to the philosophical zombie argument. Some of which cut it off at the legs (they don't know to aim for the head! sorry bad pun). For instance some, like those descended from the work of Wittgenstein, argue
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by mabub24 4y ago
Right, if you setup the intelligence and the brain to be computational in nature of course they will appear seamlessly computational. But there are obvious human elements that don't fit into that model, yet which fundamentally make up
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by mabub24 4y ago
> Basically what I'm trying to say is how can anyone who believes the brain is purely physical (not spiritual), believe that we just simply cannot achieve human-level intelligence by machine (no matter how complex the machine gets).
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by mabub24 4y ago
> I’m afraid all those arguments boil down to “we don’t know how to do it yet, therefore it can’t be done”, which is absurd. I'm not saying that. What I'm pointing out is that most arguments in favour of AGI rely on a crucial a
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by mabub24 4y ago
> If a robot can do that, too (what you call "convincing as AGI") then we must assume it is also conscious, because if we don't, we'd have a logical inconsistency on our hands. If I am allowed to safely assume you are
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by mabub24 4y ago
> What are the common secular arguments against AGI? There is an entire sector of Philosophy of Mind that is a convincing argument against AGI. Neuroscience is also pretty skeptical of it. Part of it comes down to what you mean by AGI. I
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by mabub24 4y ago
Are they allergic to water, or what's in the water? Actually, scratch that. Before that --- are they allergic or psychosomatically allergic to it?
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by mabub24 4y ago
Have you ever been bit by the bug of absolutely needing to get something done and finished just so you can keep riding the high of finishing something? You chase that feeling into the next thing, and the next thing, and so on. They were d
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by mabub24 4y ago
> Our goal is to have technology companies, research labs, and similar organizations sponsor contests about their respective fields. Sci-Fi has a strong vein of criticism throughout it's history. A lot of Sci-fi is a critique of mod
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by mabub24 4y ago
"If a lion could speak, we could not understand ( verstehen )[0] him." - Ludwig Wittgenstein, from Philosophical Investigations [0] Ironically, there is disagreement over the best translation of verstehen. Understand and comprehen
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by mabub24 5y ago
I agree. The quality of his writing and output is generally on par with someone like Clive Cussler, or Joyce Carol Oates. The method is pretty simple: write a lot and see what sticks. Updike was probably the best writer in the modern era to
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by mabub24 5y ago
This is a well studied phenomenon in literature. Some books we regard as classics today sold relatively little upon release, while authors in the past were incredibly popular then, upon the author's death usually, the name was utterly
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by mabub24 5y ago
I find, in general, that philosophy tends to have the best overall quality of writing in academic writing. There are still examples of bad writing, but when it's good, the writing is crystal clear and a joy to read.
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by mabub24 5y ago
It's an evolution on the Chattering Classes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chattering_classes
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by mabub24 5y ago
Yeah, I think most people look at the endless 1v1 party sparring of America's political system and just see a recipe for unending revenge and bitterness. Most parliamentary systems, or multi-party systems, do not have the same amounts
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by mabub24 5y ago
Pierce can get some good ones off, but I find his writing often lacks the laconic elegance or sheer surrealism of some of PJ or Thompson's writing. Sometimes he veers into old-man-yells-at-cloud territory, and too be fair it feels like
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by mabub24 5y ago
This is a topic where having knowledge of art history helps quite a lot. One could make an entire university course around the ways artists have grappled with perspective over time. Just coming to grips with the fact that linear perspective
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by mabub24 5y ago
I think with something like Icelandic, your best bet is to find a teacher, be it online or in person. Because Icelandic has a small population of speakers, and less of a global reach compared to languages like French, Mandarin, or English,
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by mabub24 5y ago
It is well known that having an SO that speaks your learning language is a huge help. Every older french lady has always told me to "get a french gf if I really want to learn." The same is true for programming. Very common to hear
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by mabub24 5y ago
You might be thinking of Bon Cop Bad Cop which is all about the differences between Franco-Ontarian and Quebecois French, or Standard French versus Quebecois. Where I live I hear a ton of Quebecois but even with knowing B2 level French I
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by mabub24 5y ago
Reading and conversing are really almost like two different skills. A lot of learning how to speak a language is ear-training. With French, I started much more with speaking so now I can make out a lot of what people say. But, the big chall
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by mabub24 5y ago
That's the big thing with me as well. I would comfortably say I'm at a B2 level, but the french from native speakers in casual conversation is so fast sometimes. It gave me a new appreciation for how fast I probably speak englis
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by mabub24 5y ago
This was why I decided to not go for my PhD. I looked at the latest hires for tenure track positions from my graduating year and saw that essentially all of them came from the same 6 "top tier" schools for my program/field of
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by mabub24 5y ago
I was recommending Henry James in reference to readers attention spans, who often balk at the idea of reading anything quite as dense as from James' writings. But they're missing out. His famous Chp. 42 from Portrait of a Lady is
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by mabub24 5y ago
Wealthy individuals during and around the gilded age had a view of charity that was in some senses very similar to modern charity by the super-wealthy, but also quite different. Like today's wealthy, they often used charity as a mechan
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by mabub24 5y ago
IMO, this style is most effective on a screen, and on a phone screen at that. This style does not fare well on the page, nor if you're trying to write on a complicated subject. It has the unfortunate feeling of superficiality. Many ide
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by mabub24 5y ago
The best explainer for sentence construction, structure, and flow through paragraphs, I've ever read was in Joseph M Williams Style: Towards Clarity and Grace [1]. In it, he works methodically from word choice, to sentence, to paragra
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by mabub24 5y ago
McCarthy's other brilliant book, Suttree , is like Faulkner on acid with incredible prose and a grotesque sense of humour (there's an infamous scene with a melon and a desperate man). I've never read a man describe trash and
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by mabub24 5y ago
The "legion of horribles" sequence is also incredibly sticky, just some of the phrases like 'death hilarious" stick around for years... "A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes atti
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by mabub24 5y ago
The author mentions that they've contributed to Puck, which is a comical example of this: https://puck.news/ Open up the side menu and you'll see you can select each of Puck's area of interest: - Hollywood -

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