peaigr comments on Rationality Quotes August 2013 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: Vaniver 02 August 2013 08:59PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 16 August 2013 04:00:48AM *  5 points [-]

All too often people report on past and present applications [of computers], which is good, but not on the topic whose purpose is to sensitize you to future possibilities you might exploit. It is hard to get people to aggressively think about how things in their own area might be done differently. I have some times wondered whether it might be better if I asked people to apply computers to other areas of application than their own narrow speciality; perhaps they would be less inhibited there!

Since the purpose, as stated above, is to get the reader to think more carefully on the awkward topics of machines “thinking” and their vision of their personal future, you the reader should take your own opinions and try first to express them clearly, and then examine them with counter arguments, back and forth, until you are fairly clear as to what you believe and why you believe it. It is none of the author’s business in this matter what you believe, but it is the author’s business to get you to think and articulate your position clearly. For readers of the book I suggest instead of reading the next pages you stop and discuss with yourself, or possibly friends, these nasty problems; the surer you are of one side the more you should probably argue the other side!

Richard Hamming, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering (1997, PDF)