AI as an Arena for Magical Thinking Among Skeptics

[1] These neural nets are modelled after biological neural nets but are organised differently and seem to take the concept of a neuron on something of a tangent from its organisation and function in a natural brain, be it insect or human.

[2] Cog, http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/humanoid-robotics-group/cog/images/cog-rod-slinky.gif, as seen on 11 June 2004 (enlarged).

[3] 2002, 50-1.

[4] Searle 1998, Edelman 1992, etc., including some of Dreyfus 1992. Edelman lists Jerome Brunner, Alan Gauld, Claes von Hofsten, George Lakoff, Ronald Langaker, Ruth Garrett Millikan, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, and Benny Shannon as convergent members of a realist camp (1992, 220).

[5] Lee 1987, 6.

[6] 'Intentionality' is a philosophy of mind term for the 'about-ness' of mental states.

[7] By 'teleology' I understand in a somewhat inclusive sense that branch of theology and philosophy that deals with goals, ends, and ultimate meanings.

[8] 'Cognitive faculty' is a philosophy of mind conception of a feature of the human mind that operates on mental representations to perform a specific function.

[9] The spiritual 'intellect' is a patristic concept that embraces thought, conceived on different terms from 'cognitive science,' and is inseparably the place where a person meets God. Augustine locates the image of God in the intellect (In Euangelium Ioannis Tractatus, III.4), and compares the intellect to Christ as illuminating both itself and everything else (In Euangelium Ioannis Tractatus, XLVII, 3).

[10] Watts 2002, 57-8. See the World Transhumanist Association website at http://www.transhumanist.org for further information on transhumanism.

[11] C.S. Lewis critiques this project in The Abolition of Man (1943) and That Hideous Strength (1965). He does not address the question of whether this is a possible goal, but argues that it is not a desirable goal: the glorious future it heralds is in fact a horror compared to the present it so disparages.

[12] Encyclopedia Mythica, 'Rabbi Loeb,' http://www.pantheon.org/articles/r/rabbi_loeb.html, as seen on 26 Mar 04.

[13] Foerst 1998, 109 also brings up this archetypal tendency in her conclusion.

[14] United States Postal Service 2003 annual report, http://www.usps.com/history/anrpt03/html/realkind.htm, as seen on 6 May 2004.

[15] Cog, as seen on http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/humanoid-robotics-group/cog/images/scaz-cog.gif, on 6 May 2004 (enlarged).

[16] 2002, 57.

[17] Cog, 'Theory of Mind for a Humanoid Robots,' http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/humanoid-robotics/group/cog/Abstracts2000/scaz.pdf, as seen on 6 May 2004.

[18] Adler 1986, 319-321.

[19] 1992, 161-4.

[20] Utopias are often a satire more than a prescription literally conceived, but they are also far more prescriptive than one would gather from a simple statement that they are satire.

[21] Turing 1950.

[22] VanLehn 1989, in Posner 1989, 532.

[23] Ibid. in Posner 1989, 534.

[24] 1998, 101.

[25] 1992, 159.

[26] Foerst 1998, 103.

[27] Turing 1950.

[28] Hebb 1949, as quoted in the Linux 'fortune' program.

[29] Nominalism said that general categories are something in the mind drawn from real things, and not something things themselves arise from. This has profoundly shaped the course of Western culture.

[30] Lewis 1943, 46.

[31] Yates 1966, 380-382.

[32] Without submitting to the Church in the usual way, the magus is equal to its highest members (Webster 1982, 57).

[33] George Mason University's Modern & Classical Languages, 'Pico della Mirandola: Oratio de hominis dignitate,' http://www.gmu.edu/departments/fld/CLASSICS/mirandola.oratio.html, as seen on 18 May 2004. See Poim 27-9, CH7 1-2 in Bentley 1987 for texts reflecting an understanding of the world as evil and associated contempt for the hoi polloi.

[34] Thomas More: Utopia, Digitale Rekonstruktion, http://www.ub.uni-bielefeld.de/cgi-bin/button.cgi?pfad=/diglib/more/utopia/jpeg/&seite=00000017.jpg&jump=1, http://www.ub.uni-bielefeld.de/cgi-bin/button.cgi?pfad=/diglib/more/utopia/jpeg/&seite=00000018.jpg&jump=1, etc. (pp. 35-6), as seen on 2 June 2004.

[35] Thomas More: Utopia, Digitale Rekonstruktion, http://www.ub.uni-bielefeld.de/cgi-bin/button.cgi?pfad=/diglib/more/utopia/jpeg/&seite=00000039.jpg&jump=1, http://www.ub.uni-bielefeld.de/cgi-bin/button.cgi?pfad=/diglib/more/utopia/jpeg/&seite=00000040.jpg&jump=1, etc., (pp. 79-86), as seen on 2 June 2004. This runs through most of the book.

[36] Lewis 1943, 46.

[37] Ibid., 33-35.

[38] Ibid., 23-24.

[39] Ibid., 295-299.

[40] Ibid.

[41] See Midgley, 1992, 80.

[42] 1990, 195, 197-224,337-41.

[43] 1950.

[44] References will be to the online Greek version at Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu/inst/wsearch?wtitle=2892+049&uid=&GreekFont=Unicode&mode=c_search, according to chapter and line. Unless otherwise specified, references in this section will be to the Mystagogia.

[45] 5.1-10. 'Intellect' in particular is used as a scholarly rendering of the Greek 'nous,' and is not equivalent to the layman's use of 'intellect,' particularly not as cognate to 'intelligence.' The 'reason' ('logos') is closer to today's use of the term, but not as close as you might think. This basic conceptualisation is common to other patristic and medieval authors, such as Augustine.

[46] 1992, 239.

[47] 'Punctuated equilibrium' is a variant on Darwin's theory of (gradual) evolution. It tries to retain an essentially Darwinian mechanism whilst acknowledging a fossil record and other evidence which indicate long periods of stability interrupted by the abrupt appearance and disappearance of life forms. It is called 'punk eek' by the irreverent.

[48] I.82. Material from the Capita Gnosticae, not available in Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, will be referenced by century and chapter number, i.e. I.82 abbreviates Century I, Chapter 82.

[49] See Lewis 2001, 522.

[50] What we usually mean by 'cause' today: something which mechanically brings about its effect, as time and favourable conditions cause an acorn to grow into an oak.

[51] The 'final cause' is the goal something is progressing towards: thus a mature oak is the final cause of the acorn that would one day grow into it.

[52] As seen on the Project Gutenberg archive at http://www.gutenberg.net/etext97/1ws1810.txt on 15 June 2004.

[53] 1992, 147-165.

[54] 1998, 104-7.