Viewing profile — mabub24

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, lik…

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'…

> 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 …

> 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…

> 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 …

> 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 skeptica…

Are they allergic to water, or what's in the water? Actually, scratch that. Before that --- are they allergic or psychosomatically allergic to it?

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 …

> 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 throughou…

"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 …

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 stic…

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,…

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 …

It's an evolution on the Chattering Classes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chattering_classes

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…

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-…

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…

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 rea…

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…

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…

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…

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 a…

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…

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 o…

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. Li…