02.16.06
Enlightenment?
Current science makes a confused claim on the definition of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment, rarely studied by most scientists, is/is not 1. a time period, 2. several regions with different ‘enlightenments’ (e.g. Germany, Holland, England, France, America,…) 3. an atheist triumph against religion 4. in one-to-one concordance with science in the relevant time-period and/or anything any subsequent scientist claims is science, etc,…. 5. a pun on yogic enlightenment…. 6….
Clearly to equate Enlightenment rationality with agreeing on certain views on AI is close to irrational.
Note that the time-period, region, definition includes the romantic movement.
Note that a tremendous surge of art occurs in this period. Is that irrationalism?
What about German classical philosophy? Kant’s famous essay on the enlightenment, is that excluded?
Most scientists will automatically exclude the German Enlightenment.
The whole thing is silly, and, frankly, a betrayal of the Enlightenment.
In the deepest sense, the AI champions see their critics as trying to reverse the triumph of the Enlightenment, with its promise that man’s mind can understand everything, and as retreating to an obscurantist, religious outlook on the world. They see humanity as having to choose, right now, between accepting the possibility, if not the actual existence, of thinking machines and sinking back into the Dark Ages. But these are not our only alternatives; there is a third way, the way of agnosticism, which means accepting the fact that we have not yet achieved artificial intelligence, and have no idea if we ever will. That fact in no way condemns us to revert to pre-rational modes of thinking—all it means is acknowledging that there is a lot we don’t know, and that we will have to learn to suspend judgment. It may be uncomfortable to live with uncertainty, but it’s far better than insisting, against all evidence, that we have accomplished a task that we have in fact scarcely begun.