Well, it's a music streaming service, so...

At least we're past the first hurdle. And I'll take "syntax is insufficient for semantics" as your thesis.

Not really. They suggest that most symbol manipulation can't produce understanding, but manipulation of symbols of that have a causal connection with the outside world can. Essentially, they're saying "syntax is insufficient for semantics, but the extra needed component is still compatible with computationalism". But I don't find this argument very compelling, at least on its own.

This is simply false - they're just suggesting that two minds can be produced by the same object, like two programs running on the same computer, so the the man's lack of understanding doesn't mean that there can't be understanding somewhere else. If I'm wrong about it, just name the non-computational aspect in the systems reply. :)

And it's especially amusing that you think that these guys are the magical thinkers. All they're saying is that one part of something can understand things that other parts don't, which anyone who knows what 'subconscious' means or what brain injuries can do to a person should accept. On the other hand, you seem to think because you don't know how X could produce Y on its own that there must be a Z to produce it, even though you can't point to Z or describe how it produced Y - much like dualists or creationists.

Except for all the people pointing out the problems with that assumption - masked man/problem of other minds issues, the reliance on intuition, the origin of something mental that isn't needed to produce behavior, and above all the complete lack of suggestions (or even hints) about what would be sufficient for semantics.

And I'm serious about that last part. Give me one solid lead on the source of semantics, understanding, qualia or any of the rest of the vaguely-described subjective stuff that separates mere computation from thinking, or a way to test something outside my own mind for any of those things, and I'll cede the entire argument.

And I don't even have a word for what you're doing. You were wrong, deal with it.

"MINDS, MACHINES AND SEARLE 2: WHAT'S RIGHT AND WRONG ABOUT THE CHINESE ROOM ARGUMENT" by Stevan Harnad:

"And make no mistake about it, if you took a poll -- in the first round of BBS Commentary, in the Continuing Commentary, on comp.ai, or in the secondary literature about the Chinese Room Argument that has been accumulating across both decades to the present day (and culminating in the present book) -- the overwhelming majority still think the Chinese Room Argument is dead wrong, even among those who agree that computers can't understand! In fact (I am open to correction on this), it is my impression that, apart from myself, the only ones who profess to accept the validity of the CRA seem to be those who are equally persuaded by what I called "Granny Objections" earlier -- the kinds of soft-headed friends that do even more mischief to one's case than one's foes."

Let me guess, as with your misreading of the other source I gave you, you're somehow going to see that as saying that nobody disputes the CRA, right?

Really? Even the Wikipedia entry for AGI discusses Searle's definitions of strong and weak AI and clearly spells out that "The weak AI hypothesis is equivalent to the hypothesis that artificial general intelligence is possible." The CRA only addresses strong AI.

Well, as I said before there are at least five kinds of standard responses, and none of them have been solidly knocked down either. That's why this is still (like many questions in philosophy) an open question. Even Stevan Harnad, who thinks the CRA is just obviously correct, knows that he's in the minority.

Oh, almost forgot I was playing with a troll: If you can't even get the vocabulary right ... OK, that was weak. I'll try harder next time.

I don't even know where to start with you posts, but I'll try a quick pass:

AGI does not imply consciousness, intentionality, qualia, or any of the other difficult issues in philosophy of mind - it's only about the ability to preform tasks.

Searle's argument only covers issues like those, in fact it's a basic assumption of the argument that computation can produce every possible kind of response needed to emulate a human being, including making creative works and original discoveries. You could even reformulate his conclusion as "Computation could produce an AGI, but not a conscious AGI." without being far off.

And even worse, you seem to think that it was some kind of knock-down, indisputable argument. Sure, it was a landmark paper that stimulated a lot of discussion, but there are about a half-dozen different kinds of replies. Heck, even Wikipedia has a good rundown of the issues, and nowhere (there or in the literature) is Searle's conclusion treated as definitive.

This is almost the philosophical equivalent of saying that abiogenesis is impossible, so evolution is false.

Oh, and since you like snark: Kid, I hope that before you go out into the real world you learn that being able to poorly paraphrase a single work does not make you an expert in a field. If you don't, you'll end up hurt - badly.

So you're defending "X is caused by Y" by pointing out that you think X might do something in the future, and what I'm presuming was the Carey Schueler stunt where she was a 43rd round draft pick by her father. All you've given me is your imagination and a one-off joke.

I'll call, and raise you Manon Rhéaume and Eri Yoshida.

The NHL (and as far as I know, most other professional sports leagues) don't prohibit women from playing.

While it does happen, it's pretty rare for someone to get a Declaration of Actual Innocence - in fact the entire appeals process revolves around procedural and legal errors, not factual ones. Just getting a new trial for someone convicted before DNA testing was available, but who can now prove that their blood or semen doesn't match the evidence, is an uphill battle.

So what would you accept as good enough evidence? The Innocence Project claims to have found 140 actual perpetrators of the crimes that their clients were originally accused of.

This is true only for things that are separated by time-like (and, being the edge case, light-like) intervals. For events that are separated by space-like intervals they might be simultaneous in my frame of reference but not in yours - i.e. simultaneity is relative.

You mean didn't exceed the local speed of light, which is fine. But that doesn't change the fact that in some other reference frame you arrived 50 years before you left. And if there was a return wormhole at rest in that frame of reference you could come back to earth 50 years before you left.

And that's why scifi and popular science are so keen on warp drives and wormholes - they obey the well-demonstrated limits on high-speed travel while (purely in theory) allowing FTL and time travel.

You're at two events events (leaving one place and appearing at another) separated by what in relativity is called a space-like interval - and by definition there are observers that 'see' them happen at the same time, others that 'see' one happen first, and others that 'see' the other happen first. This isn't a problem because (as far as we can tell) those events can't affect each other.

My best guess as to what you're trying to say is that because you don't end up in your own past light-cone (i.e. the events don't have an inverted time-like separation) there are no paradoxes, no violations of causality, etc. Which is true if this kind of trav ... er ... 'changing position' is one-off, or fairly strictly limited in certain ways.

So you went 100 light years in less than 100 years. That's basically the definition of superluminal. It doesn't matter how it's done.

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say. "Magic" or not, you'd be travelling outside of your future light cone, and that's exactly the problem - to you and people on Earth it would appear instantaneous, but for some observers you would be traveling backward in time.

On other words, "instant" travel is nonsense because spatially separated things can't happen "at the same time" for all observers. Relativity of simultaneity and all that.

Well, except for all those experiments...

Only if it took 100 years for you to make the trip. Otherwise you will be moving backward in time for some possible observers.

People usually only freak out about behavior in movies that they think other people will emulate, especially things that seem realistic. My parents like to watch lots of British murder mysteries, but they'll be put off by 'bad' language, nudity, or people being rude in the same show.

The people who boycott for the reasons you gave believe that our entire culture is heavily racist and sexist, and movies are part of the problem. But most people aren't corrupt cops.