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4.32 AVERAGE
4.32 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
challenging
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
As a mathematician, I think this was trying too hard for me to appeal to non mathematicians and kept talking around things in a very get to the point way
When a philosophy book is this much of a mess, you know its conclusions will be all wrong. That's the case with Aristotle, Plotinus, Hegel, Lacan, and especially Hofstadter. For all its acclaim, this had pretty much no impact on programming. Instead its biggest contribution was popularizing the stupid notion that the human brain is a literal computer, and even worse, that actual manmade computers possess consciousness. But of course you can say anything you want if you don't believe in logic.
I don't like the dorky humor and smug attitude. This is for kids who are still confused by Escher drawings. The Achilles Tortoise dialogues are especially cringy. At least he disproves himself without realizing it, as he got lost in his schizophrenic loose associations, just like other fatalists. And like all overconfident "thinkers" he references obscure bad arguments to represent the opposition, and glazes over several inaccurate assumptions by pretending it's common knowledge.
It's also annoying the way he posits the false dilemma of the religious "soul" vs the machine mind. There are obviously more than these two extreme ways of looking at it. You don't have to believe in sky daddy to recognize your own consciousness. There's literally no connection between religion and unmechanical consciousness. The machine mind comes from Calvinist dogma, not science. The idea that we are all doomed from birth to heaven and hell is a Christian idea, not the idea that we have free will. Luther argued against free will. Atheists like Nietzsche and all the existentialists argued in favor of free will. I'm not sure what gave certain people the idiotic notion that atheists have to believe in the machine mind, but certainly it comes from a lack of education.
Pseudointellectuals love stuff like this because their favorite thing to do is find excuses to believe in the irrational while believing themselves to be more rational and intellectually superior than everyone else. By believing in the irrational, they can make themselves look "different" from other people since they have an "unconventional" idea that sounds "unique" even though it's just a newish variation of a previously held popular prejudice. In addition, the sloppiness and superficial "complexity" of this book turns away most potential readers, so those who've read it are rewarded with the bragging rights of reading something they perceive to be as difficult to read as Kant or Heidegger. This also serves to conceal a lot of the flaws in its reasoning, in the same way as Hegel and Lacan concealed their own flaws, except here at least the language is not complicated at all and it's very easy to get through. From the surface with all of its mathematical equations and fake programming stuff it probably scares off a lot of people while inviting a select crowd of people whose knowledge is limited to math and programming stuff without extending elsewhere. By arguing against logic while trying to pose a logical argument, it gives itself yet another excuse for being illogical. So if a person were to criticize this book, they'd have to navigate through a bunch of people who say "you just don't understand it" or "you missed this part" or "but it's not supposed to be logical" or something to that effect.
It also gives them a lot to talk about by discussing a lot of topics that dumb people think smart people talk about. By referencing a wide range of people and subjects it pretends eclecticism. The chances of it hitting on subjects that an average-intelligence reader doesn't know about is somewhat high. In this book he mostly draws upon things that are quite mainstream, but the average reader will be unfamiliar with at least one thing, leading them to believe that the author is more informed about it than they are. But his interpretations of the people he references is very wrong. He puts his own voice in their mouths.
Just because you personally have very mechanical thoughts, doesn't mean our minds are mechanical. Just because you like codes, symbols, and puzzles, doesn't mean that codes, symbols, or puzzles have anything to do with reality. AI is just as human as a sculpture. In the beginning of the book, I had hope of this being a post-structuralist work of philosophy because he dedicated so many pages to disproving the meanings of symbols and categories, but then he suddenly decides that the entire world is composed of symbols and categories, and that even your consciousness itself is a symbol.
Artificial intelligence indeed, because all of the "intelligence" here is artificial.
I don't like the dorky humor and smug attitude. This is for kids who are still confused by Escher drawings. The Achilles Tortoise dialogues are especially cringy. At least he disproves himself without realizing it, as he got lost in his schizophrenic loose associations, just like other fatalists. And like all overconfident "thinkers" he references obscure bad arguments to represent the opposition, and glazes over several inaccurate assumptions by pretending it's common knowledge.
It's also annoying the way he posits the false dilemma of the religious "soul" vs the machine mind. There are obviously more than these two extreme ways of looking at it. You don't have to believe in sky daddy to recognize your own consciousness. There's literally no connection between religion and unmechanical consciousness. The machine mind comes from Calvinist dogma, not science. The idea that we are all doomed from birth to heaven and hell is a Christian idea, not the idea that we have free will. Luther argued against free will. Atheists like Nietzsche and all the existentialists argued in favor of free will. I'm not sure what gave certain people the idiotic notion that atheists have to believe in the machine mind, but certainly it comes from a lack of education.
Pseudointellectuals love stuff like this because their favorite thing to do is find excuses to believe in the irrational while believing themselves to be more rational and intellectually superior than everyone else. By believing in the irrational, they can make themselves look "different" from other people since they have an "unconventional" idea that sounds "unique" even though it's just a newish variation of a previously held popular prejudice. In addition, the sloppiness and superficial "complexity" of this book turns away most potential readers, so those who've read it are rewarded with the bragging rights of reading something they perceive to be as difficult to read as Kant or Heidegger. This also serves to conceal a lot of the flaws in its reasoning, in the same way as Hegel and Lacan concealed their own flaws, except here at least the language is not complicated at all and it's very easy to get through. From the surface with all of its mathematical equations and fake programming stuff it probably scares off a lot of people while inviting a select crowd of people whose knowledge is limited to math and programming stuff without extending elsewhere. By arguing against logic while trying to pose a logical argument, it gives itself yet another excuse for being illogical. So if a person were to criticize this book, they'd have to navigate through a bunch of people who say "you just don't understand it" or "you missed this part" or "but it's not supposed to be logical" or something to that effect.
It also gives them a lot to talk about by discussing a lot of topics that dumb people think smart people talk about. By referencing a wide range of people and subjects it pretends eclecticism. The chances of it hitting on subjects that an average-intelligence reader doesn't know about is somewhat high. In this book he mostly draws upon things that are quite mainstream, but the average reader will be unfamiliar with at least one thing, leading them to believe that the author is more informed about it than they are. But his interpretations of the people he references is very wrong. He puts his own voice in their mouths.
Just because you personally have very mechanical thoughts, doesn't mean our minds are mechanical. Just because you like codes, symbols, and puzzles, doesn't mean that codes, symbols, or puzzles have anything to do with reality. AI is just as human as a sculpture. In the beginning of the book, I had hope of this being a post-structuralist work of philosophy because he dedicated so many pages to disproving the meanings of symbols and categories, but then he suddenly decides that the entire world is composed of symbols and categories, and that even your consciousness itself is a symbol.
Artificial intelligence indeed, because all of the "intelligence" here is artificial.
Well, I should have known that a book recommended over the years by two PhD scientists would be pretty tough reading for a liberal arts major! Many pages had to be reread two or three times to grasp the point (up to my capacity to get it). The writing is clear, even if the deeper principles and theories are somewhat overwhelming. I'm a real Escher fan, so getting a chance to read the mathematical and theoretical backbones of Escher and Bach was a fun challenge.
Una lectura laberíntica, pero intrigante.
Me la recomendó una profesora de Psicología del Arte, pero bien me la pudo recomendar cualquier profesor que haya tenido en la vida y habría encontrado como relacionarlo a su tema, estoy segura.
Lo que si es que me deja con esa desagradable sensación de que quedan (¡muchas!) cosas que no estoy entendiendo, aún cuando leí despacio y con mucha atención.
Me la recomendó una profesora de Psicología del Arte, pero bien me la pudo recomendar cualquier profesor que haya tenido en la vida y habría encontrado como relacionarlo a su tema, estoy segura.
Lo que si es que me deja con esa desagradable sensación de que quedan (¡muchas!) cosas que no estoy entendiendo, aún cuando leí despacio y con mucha atención.
challenging
informative
slow-paced
challenging
funny
informative
reflective
slow-paced