X-Message-Number: 11700
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: comments to Mike Perry and Brook Norton
Date: Sat, 8 May 1999 19:07:40 +1000 (EST)

Hi everyone!

To Mike Perry:

The problem with a robot deprived of any connection to the world is that
if it works like a human being, it will forthwith cease to operate for the
period of its deprivation. People in sensory deprivation do not continue
to think and operate normally. 

To Brook Norton:

I must point out that even though YOU consider the possibility of a 
Programmer controlling your life to be plausible while you do not agree
with the possibility of God controlling your life, the intellectual status
of your belief remains the same. Not only that, but on what GROUNDS do
you believe one idea is stronger than the other? No scientist I know of
would claim that a scientific proof of the nonexistence of God has been
attained. Not only that, but a God could control our lives exactly like
a Programmer could control our lives: hence if you believe in one, you
have reasons to believe in the other.

Ideas which BY THEIR NATURE fail to be subject to any empirical proof
are useless subjects of conversation. If you want to believe in a special
computer theology, go ahead. Just don't confuse it with anything experi-
mentally valid.

			Best and long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson

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