[ExI] Searle and AI

[Damien Broderick]

On 12/27/2009 12:08 PM, Jef wrote:

> To paraphrase our friend Eliezer (as irksome as that can sometimes
> be), mysterious questions don't require mysterious answers.

Sometimes, though, they require previously unsuspected answers. When 
your estimate of the sun's age can't be reconciled with all the energy 
sources known to science, including gravity, sometimes you have to go to 
that mysterious newfangled quantum theory (so new it hasn't been 
invented yet) and invoke radioactivity. It's true that this looks 
mysterious to anyone who's unfamiliar with radioactivity and the quantum 
formalism that explains it. When the universe starts looking much 
queerer than anyone supposed, sometimes you have to just make up dark 
matter and dark energy (consistent with what's already known, naturally) 
and hope for the best.

Damien Broderick