From: Reason (reason@exratio.com)
Date: Mon May 13 2002 - 14:45:00 MDT
--> Harvey Newstrom
> On Monday, May 13, 2002, at 02:40 am, Reason wrote:
>
> > Let me see now:
> >
> > * Take a starting point of defining a human being as being the set of
> > average performers out of a large group of people.
> > * Circularly define humans as being something that can pass a Turing
> > Test
> > conducted by another human.
> > * Most young children are not human.
>
> If you had presented this example in a freshman logic course, you would
> have failed. This is classic circular logic. You asserted a definition
> in step one that excludes some groups. You then measure groups against
> your definition in step two, which excluded the group you excluded in
> step one. Then you conclude that since the excluded group failed your
> test of inclusion they therefore should be excluded. You conclusion is
> just a restatement of your premise, and is only as true as your premise.
>
> In other words, you have proven that if we don't count children as
> human, and we test humans to exclude children, that children will be
> excluded by our test, therefore we should exclude children because they
> don't count as humans, because they don't pass the test, that we
> designed to exclude them because they aren't human....
Well, yes. I should have emphasised earlier on in that e-mail that I wasn't
attempting anything rigorous. It's just a line-drawing exercise that grabs
at a starting point that some people will accept as reasonable (i.e. "I, the
middle-aged adult, am human, let's start figuring out how to tell if
everyone else is." This would be the same starting point that everyone is
faced with in on a personal level in real life).
One of my points was that the line-drawing exercise was arbitrary even if
scientific stuff is invoked; there's nothing stopping us from defining
whatever we like to be human. Shinto is pretty inclusive, for example.
Fortunately I never took freshman logic courses -- too much minding of Ps
and Qs for me.
Reason
http://www.exratio.com/
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