Gadgetoff 2007 - Marvin Minsky

Does thinking you're a machine reduce the pleasure of an orgasm? Probably not.

Minsky is eloquent, but all he does is reiterate standard materialist theories of mind. He's a better speaker than Dennett and Churchland but in the end, they all argue for the same theory: the mind is a mechanistic, determined machine. Of course, if this is true, then thought and reason are automated physical processes. If that's true, then we have no reason to believe anything we think is true, since we are programmed to think it no matter what. All forms of materialism are self refuting.

There's a reason why 90% of the Nobel Laureates of Science are atheist/agnostic. Because God is a social construct.

Isaac Asimov: There are only 2 people I've met in my life who I admit are smarter than me, carl sagan and marvin minsky.

You may think that being a machine is a bad, depressive thing because you've been brought up to think otherwise, and now feel the need to tear down a massive foundational thought-structure, which involves considerable discomfort (people are similarly dismayed when they find out there's no Santa Claus).

If we expose people from the start to this *possibility* (not as an absolute truth), they will acccept it without any protest. There are plenty of benefits to the man-as-machine mindset.

2:18 "I think there is a big future in vehicles with legs." .... Unlikely.

SO WHEN are we going to have real AI? He makes it sound like the problem is trivial. Is he talking about integration of various AI methods?
So Mr Minsky If given a bunch of sensors and a bunch of actuators all in some environment can you make a program that would evolve to become intelligent?
May be intelligence is a by-product of necessity to survive and faster adaptation to changes.

When I worked at Compaq Computer Corp I contacted Minsky about setting up some collaboration between our shop and their lab. Compaq was a co-sponsor of the Future Workplace project to eliminate the keyboard from the workplace. I wrote him later to check on the status of The Emotion Machine and he sent me drafts prior to publication. Then he contact me about publishing in Japan (I run an independent publishing company in Tokyo). Also he contacted me to tell me he agreed with my amazon comments