X-Message-Number: 3829
From: 
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 12:10:42 -0500
Subject: SCI. CRYONICS moose and men

This is on pirated time again, and probably  wasted, since no one ever seems
to change his mind, but at least maybe we can get a feel for each other's
psychology. Scattergun:

Uploaders often say, "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks
like a duck, it's probably a duck." (Sometimes they leave out the "probably."
This is an interesting choice of words, since as far back as the eighteenth
century there were clockwork ducks that looked, walked, and quacked pretty
ducky.

Or consider a human hunter who puts on a moose suit and head and makes a
moose mating call, hoping to lure a lady moose or gentleman moose, as the
case may be. The moose says to itself, "Hey, that passes the Turing Test;
hold on, baby, here I come."

This also happens among lower animals vis a vis each other. A predator insect
imitates a prey insect etc., likewise marine life. The so-simple point is
that appearances can be deceiving.

And don't tell me you're smarter than a moose or an insect--that isn't the
point. The point is that there are (or could be) people or things smarter
than you and able to fool you.

John Clark has said that we attribute feeling to animals because we observe
their behavior. Not so. We attribute feeling to animals because we observe
their behavior AND we know their biology is similar to ours. If we observed
the same behavior in a clockwork tinkertoy, we would hesitate at least, and
reserve judgment--and not just because of our primitive bias, as the
uploaders might say.

It is ironic that the "behavior" criterion, that uploaders think so modern
and avant garde, can also be ancient and primitive. When the heavens "raged"
in storms, didn't this show that someone in the sky was angry? Doesn't the
Turing Test commit the anthropomorphic fallacy?

Robert Ettinger


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