Victim of the Brain

DrainX

Sweden3187 Posts

October 06 2008 23:37 GMT

Watching this kickass docudrama right now

Try not to care about the bad VHS rip quality ;(

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8576072297424860224

1988 docudrama about "the ideas of Douglas Hofstadter". It was created by Dutch director Piet Hoenderdos. Features interviews with Doug Hofstadter and Dan Dennett. Dennett also stars as himself. Original acquired from the Center for Research in Concepts and Cognition at Indiana University. Uploaded with permission from Douglas Hofstadter

For everyone who is interested in A.I., the philosophy of mind or free will.

Dan Dennett <3
Douglas Hofstadter <3
Marvin Minsky <3

Rotodyne

United States2263 Posts

October 07 2008 02:41 GMT

misleading title :D

d(O.o)a

Canada5066 Posts

October 07 2008 02:54 GMT

On October 07 2008 11:41 Rotodyne wrote:
misleading title :D

I came in expecting to see a futurama episode.

DrainX

Sweden3187 Posts

October 07 2008 03:10 GMT

I'm going to bed now. I guess I wont be expecting any serious comments or anyone actually watching the film. Oh well, your loss I guess

FR4CT4L

Australia697 Posts

October 07 2008 03:39 GMT

I watched it. I liked the little stories they made to get points across, being unable to "kill" the little robot, the brain in a vat with a very cool twist and the little space race....though I'm not sure why they are laughing when the despot I suppose flies by the ship. I didn't pay too much attention to the scenes between those though. The ending question of does a true AI needs emotions is an interesting one though.

I'm not too good at debate but in my mind a true artificial intelligence would need to have some kind of base emotionality. I recall a pyche lecture I downloaded where the lecturer made a point of saying characters like Vulcans and androids in Startrek make no sense. He basically made the point that if Spock (a Vulcan) truly has no emotions why does he do anything? He's adventuring with the crew so that's curiosity of sorts. He won't betray the crew which is loyalty. If he didn't gain some sort of happiness or satisfaction from this why should he even bother to do anything with his day. He won't feel any better or worse regardless. So for a good AI (Like Sci-Fi level) which learns and reacts to stimuli why should it do anything if the end result is neither better or worse for itself.

That's the best I can phrase that at the moment.

DrainX

Sweden3187 Posts

October 07 2008 10:45 GMT

Yeah I agree. I think Hofstadter says something along the same lines when he is asked what he means about writing that emotions and intelligence are inseparable. If we didn't have emotions that guided our thinking then our thinking would just be random jitter. Or something to that sort. I think im going to order the book that most of this film was based on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel,_Escher,_Bach

also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Evolves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_Explained

._. So many books I want to read and so little time and money :/

FR4CT4L

Australia697 Posts

October 07 2008 13:28 GMT

I'll check to see if my University has them. Though I should probably finish my books on game design first.

I should think you'd have a better chance at a large scale debate if you had just asked a question and not linked an hour and a half of movie

DrainX

Sweden3187 Posts

October 07 2008 17:39 GMT

Meh. Not like a lot of people read my blog anyway

If there was a debate, there would probably only be like 3-4 people taking part in it. And realy my intention with this OP was not to start a debate but to show other people that movie and atleast I got one person to watch it so I'm happy

If I wanted a debate I could just have written a longer post like you said and titled it consciousness / free will and posted it in the general forum. I think we had a debate like that not many months ago anyway.

d(O.o)a

Canada5066 Posts

October 07 2008 22:11 GMT

it pales in comparison to futurama.

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