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From: dbongard@netcom.com (Dan Bongard)
Subject: Re: Quake, Violence, Guns, Constitution, et al
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Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 20:41:48 GMT
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Thomas Weigle (loop@127.0.0.1) wrote:
: Dan Bongard wrote:

: > : Rather not. Does a book have to have "PHILOSOPHY" plastered all over
: > : it in order for it to be somewhat philosophical?
: > 
: > No. It has to contain some form of reasoning <...> Ergo only an idiot would
: > take his jokes as "philosophy", or think they were rules to live by.

: Aha. Meaning of course that a lot of the old great Greek philosophers'
: ideas would only be stories meant to amuse because they are disguised as
: tragedies or comedies.

The stories Greek philosophers told to illustrate their philosophy
had reasoning backing them up. That was the qualification I made in 
the sentence you quoted. If they had simply made clever remarks
in a void of reasoning or ideas, as Adams does, they would not have
been remembered past their own lifetimes.

: <Snip fictional dolphins - well, then, do radios, cars, guns etc
:  really do us a lot of good?>

Obviously. 

:>: On the other hand, what defines intelligence?

:> Human scientists and dictionary authors. The term has no objective meaning.

: In a logical world that is. One could assume that intelligence is the
: average idea of what creatures defining themselves as intelligent consider
: intelligent in a most subjective way.

Except that since no two humans have the same subjective idea -- or even
similar ideas -- of what intelligence is, we're back at square one. You
can't "average" ideas.

[nonsense about telepathic dolphins snipped]

:>: Back to the way dolphins communicate. Since Homo locus (the speaking
:>: human) is probably a better term for human beings than homo sapiens, 
:>: since it is what has made us what we are, 

:> Your utter ignorance of linguistics, psychology, and evolution is both
:> pathetic and disturbing. Speech is not what makes us what we are;
:> intelligence is. It has been demonstrated empirically that people
:> incapable of using or understanding language are still capable of human-
:> level feats of intelligence such as complicated reasoning and abstraction.
:> The theory that speech makes us what we are was quaint when it was 
:> introduced, but the burden of proof against it and utter lack of proof
:> supporting it has led to most intelligent and educated people dismissing
:> it as a possibility.

: Duh. Did it ever strike you for a second that it's only been in recent
: times that people incapable of using speech in any way have had the chance
: to develop in the same way as the rest of us? 

I am not referring to "people capable of using speech". I am referring
to people incapable of using _language_, who have been documented
occasionally (being as they are rare) for centuries, and who most
certainly did NOT (and do not) live the same lives as the rest of us
either then or now. 

: Or that before a fully working language is developed, we aren't
: capable of the level of civilization that the Western world seems
: to've reached today?

That is true. But you need intelligence before you can have language,
ergo it is intelligence (the "sapiens") that defines us, not speech.
We can be intelligent without having language, but we cannot use
language without intelligence. The essential trait is the defining trait.

:>: Everybody should at least take a look at what Asimov, Heinlein, Adams,
:>: Orwell et al have to say, beyond the robots, laser guns and space ships.

:> Everybody should bear in mind that all of these men wrote extremely
:> simple stories for extremely simple universes, and it would be a 
:> dreadful mistake to apply their ideas to our world as is.

: Ah, and once again you fail to look beyond your narrow world of
: what you've been told in school for too long. 

No, I simply realize that you'd have to be an idiot to take a 
situation applicable to a fictional, simplified, author-controlled
environment -- a situation that might well only work because the
author says it works -- and apply it to the real world. Heinlein,
for instance, was fond of spouting ideas that made absolutely no
sense for any world that did not possess Heinlein as a supreme
being -- Starship Troopers is an excellent example of this sort
of thing. Calling science fiction books "philosophical" or "good
sources of ideas" is telling people to use the ideas of semi-talented
authors of fiction instead of thinking for themselves.

: You're a software engineer, right? Well, then, don't try to be a 
: literary critic or a philosopher. 

Pretty funny coming from you, unless you have a seven-way degree in 
psychology, evolutionary biology, linguistics, criminology, philosophy,
literature, and history.

: 'I, Robot', 'Stranger in a Strange Land', 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to
: the Galaxy' and '1984' are not really simple stories about robots,
: guys from Mars, two-headed jokers or totalitarian states: what they
: really deal with is human behavior and human thinking, and that's 
: where they really shine.

That is incorrect. The first two are simplistically written pulp
chock full of unrealistic characters. The third is a comedic spoof
of, among other things, everyday life and science fiction cliches,
none of which has much bearing on human behavior or thinking. The
fourth book relies on an impossible situation to provide a backdrop
for its characters.

But, by all means, tell me -- what does "Stranger in a Strange Land"
tell us about human nature? What does "I, Robot" tell us about human
thinking?

: Bearing this in mind, I know for sure that you're not the right person to
: take up such a philosophical and humanistic discussion as whether guns
: should be every man's property or not.

Of course not. The only person worthy of debating you is one who
agrees with you. 

-- Dan
