This is a popular book published in the Spring of 2001.
Berlinksi is a philosopher, disciple and friend of philosopher and MD Marcel-Paul Schützenberger. Both were involved in the fundamental combinatorial critique of Darwinism and evolutionary theory in general. Both thinkers seem to be ambiguous but leaning against eugenics, social engineering, the myth of the new man, and so forth. Also, they ambiguously lean to favor the idea of a Creator God.
Berlinski always writes in a semi-salacious way, quite appealing to the reader. Many popular, polemical books under his belt. This book contains some humorous anecdotes about the of lives of inventors and thinkers who invented computers.
The preface is titled "The digital bureaucrat." An excerpt: "If a bureaucracy resembles a computer at the level of social organization, the living cell, if it resembles anything in our experience, resembles a computer at the level of molecular organization. The metaphor is irresistible and few biologists have resisted it. And for good reason. No other metaphor conveys the intricacies of cellular replication, transcription, and translation; and, for all that we can tell, nothing besides an algorithm can handle the administration of the biological molecules.
These reflections might indicate that the digital computer represents less of a bright, bursting novelty in human experience than is generally imagined. Although true, this is, of course, a conclusion too reassuring to be completely true. There is a considerable difference between the execution of an algorithm by a social bureaucracy or even a bacterial cell and the execution of an algorithm by a digital computer. Having coaxed the concept of an algorithm into self-consciousness, the logicians have made possible the creation of algorithms of matchless power, elegance, concision, and reliability. A digital computer may well do what a bureaucracy has done, but it does it with astonishing speed, the digital computer possessing an altogether remarkable ability to compress the otherwise sluggish stream of time. This has made all the difference in the world."
He ends the preface later with this statement: "For all the great dreams profitlessly invested in the digital computer, it is nonetheless true that not since the framers of the American Constitution took seriously the idea that all men are created equal has an idea so transformed the material conditions of life, the expectations of the race."
He refers to the idea of the algorithm.
--
In chapter 9 "The imaginary machine" he mentions once the syntagma "artificial intelligence" and in chapter 12 "An artifact of the mind" he explains it further the impossibility of such thing. He argues for a "reformation" of quantum physics to include that result. Hilarious!
--
Here's a comment of mine. I see the problem introduced by Descartes (or whoever those people may have been in reality) of the mechanization of the bodies of animals, the view of them only as machines, has its counterpart in the more recent biologization of electronic devices, which, by the same sophistry, have been assigned a quality they don't really have. We are not being fooled by a demon who tells us that the external world is real but in reality only us exist, and we are not brains in vats, as Putnam put it, but also microchips are not experiencing hallucinations, and the photosensors in digital cameras are not sensing anything, and the processor that treats the data they capture are also not executing any biological algorithm.
It's all just abuse of language. And nothing more than than dark marketing arts applied to the fomenting of mass mental illness among the hoi polloi, with the purpose of making them weaker and easier to rob from.
Twenty five years after Berlinski wrote this book, and having lived mostly connected to the internet, reading a lot, hearing many opinions and looking at many funny kitten pictures, I have to manifest my adverse conclusion that an electronics-run world government would not be any more biological than a human-run world government. It's just the same nonsense as always, only faster and cornier.
What humans do normally to each other is not a projection of what an organism does to itself, to keep alive and reproduce. A result that contradicts the ideological ambitions of most scientists. Human beings, politically, seek to either exterminate one another, or to cooperate with one another for mutual benefit. The distinction of the political means from the economic means is still the best result of sociological research, in my opinion. Faster computers imply that extermination and cooperation will be faster and more expensive, because human corruption and greed is almost infinite.
Also, human boredom will become greater and more dangerous, and time will melt ever more sluggishly. What is coming is far worse than Bolshevism and Naziism: there will be an artificial dualism of mind and body with the split of consciousness between the province of automatic government and the province of autonomous thought. A total separation from actions and consequences, that, when the dust settles, will not look fun to anyone, if there is anyone left to judge the past.
That's why I recommend everyone the memorization of all Psalms written by the other David, in Aramaic, Latin, Greek and German language, to have all our bases covered with the four pure races, the true masters of this world.
Book title: "The Advent of the Algorithm"
subtitle: "The 300-year journey from an idea to the computer"
Author: David Berlinski
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0156013916/
This is a popular book published in the Spring of 2001.
Berlinksi is a philosopher, disciple and friend of philosopher and MD Marcel-Paul Schützenberger. Both were involved in the fundamental combinatorial critique of Darwinism and evolutionary theory in general. Both thinkers seem to be ambiguous but leaning against eugenics, social engineering, the myth of the new man, and so forth. Also, they ambiguously lean to favor the idea of a Creator God.
Berlinski always writes in a semi-salacious way, quite appealing to the reader. Many popular, polemical books under his belt. This book contains some humorous anecdotes about the of lives of inventors and thinkers who invented computers.
The preface is titled "The digital bureaucrat." An excerpt: "If a bureaucracy resembles a computer at the level of social organization, the living cell, if it resembles anything in our experience, resembles a computer at the level of molecular organization. The metaphor is irresistible and few biologists have resisted it. And for good reason. No other metaphor conveys the intricacies of cellular replication, transcription, and translation; and, for all that we can tell, nothing besides an algorithm can handle the administration of the biological molecules.
These reflections might indicate that the digital computer represents less of a bright, bursting novelty in human experience than is generally imagined. Although true, this is, of course, a conclusion too reassuring to be completely true. There is a considerable difference between the execution of an algorithm by a social bureaucracy or even a bacterial cell and the execution of an algorithm by a digital computer. Having coaxed the concept of an algorithm into self-consciousness, the logicians have made possible the creation of algorithms of matchless power, elegance, concision, and reliability. A digital computer may well do what a bureaucracy has done, but it does it with astonishing speed, the digital computer possessing an altogether remarkable ability to compress the otherwise sluggish stream of time. This has made all the difference in the world."
He ends the preface later with this statement: "For all the great dreams profitlessly invested in the digital computer, it is nonetheless true that not since the framers of the American Constitution took seriously the idea that all men are created equal has an idea so transformed the material conditions of life, the expectations of the race."
He refers to the idea of the algorithm.
--
In chapter 9 "The imaginary machine" he mentions once the syntagma "artificial intelligence" and in chapter 12 "An artifact of the mind" he explains it further the impossibility of such thing. He argues for a "reformation" of quantum physics to include that result. Hilarious!
--
Here's a comment of mine. I see the problem introduced by Descartes (or whoever those people may have been in reality) of the mechanization of the bodies of animals, the view of them only as machines, has its counterpart in the more recent biologization of electronic devices, which, by the same sophistry, have been assigned a quality they don't really have. We are not being fooled by a demon who tells us that the external world is real but in reality only us exist, and we are not brains in vats, as Putnam put it, but also microchips are not experiencing hallucinations, and the photosensors in digital cameras are not sensing anything, and the processor that treats the data they capture are also not executing any biological algorithm.
It's all just abuse of language. And nothing more than than dark marketing arts applied to the fomenting of mass mental illness among the hoi polloi, with the purpose of making them weaker and easier to rob from.
Twenty five years after Berlinski wrote this book, and having lived mostly connected to the internet, reading a lot, hearing many opinions and looking at many funny kitten pictures, I have to manifest my adverse conclusion that an electronics-run world government would not be any more biological than a human-run world government. It's just the same nonsense as always, only faster and cornier.
What humans do normally to each other is not a projection of what an organism does to itself, to keep alive and reproduce. A result that contradicts the ideological ambitions of most scientists. Human beings, politically, seek to either exterminate one another, or to cooperate with one another for mutual benefit. The distinction of the political means from the economic means is still the best result of sociological research, in my opinion. Faster computers imply that extermination and cooperation will be faster and more expensive, because human corruption and greed is almost infinite.
Also, human boredom will become greater and more dangerous, and time will melt ever more sluggishly. What is coming is far worse than Bolshevism and Naziism: there will be an artificial dualism of mind and body with the split of consciousness between the province of automatic government and the province of autonomous thought. A total separation from actions and consequences, that, when the dust settles, will not look fun to anyone, if there is anyone left to judge the past.
That's why I recommend everyone the memorization of all Psalms written by the other David, in Aramaic, Latin, Greek and German language, to have all our bases covered with the four pure races, the true masters of this world.
Wow!! Thanks for this!