With whom shall I diavlog?

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Bloggingheads.tv can't exactly call up, say, the President of France and get him to do a diavlog, but they have some street cred with mid-rank celebrities and academics. With that in mind, how would you fill in this blank?

"I would really love to see a diavlog between Yudkowsky and ____________."

The Chinese Room argument seems to me so deeply misguided and silly that I doubt an interesting dialog on it is possible, any more than a fruitful discussion of religion with a well-educated theist.

I know little of his work other than the aforementioned argument, but it doesn't really paint a flattering picture of his ability to engage in clear thinking.

Searle's actually pretty brilliant and he's mostly on the right side on this one. When you cast the debate as between Searle and Dennett, Dennett is obviously right. But in a broader context, Searle and Dennett are on the same side.

But I agree that there's no reason to talk about the Chinese Room. Either you're convinced by Dennett, or there's no use talking further about it.

0Liron17y

He can probably do better than a team of Adam Frank and Jaron Lanier.

0Annoyance17y

But he has lots of fans. Admittedly, the fact that they're fans of his strongly suggests that they're lacking in the ability to engage in clear thinking. That probably has something to do with why they never seem to grasp the arguments demonstrating the problems with the 'Chinese Room'. Searle has problems grasping that systems can be analyzed in terms of their constituent parts, and that various parts can be put together to create a system - thus, his criticism that the Chinese Room can't be said to understand because no part of the room understands it. Aside from being an object lesson in cognitive failure, I don't see what any discussion with him could accomplish.

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With whom shall I diavlog?

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With whom shall I diavlog?

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