psychoceramics: FYI:[Pigdog] AI skeptic (fwd)

[Eugene Leitl <Eugene.Leitl @ lrz.uni-muenchen.de>]

A nice book, by the sound of it...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 09:38:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: Zach Copley <snatcher @ arlington.com>
To: pigdog-l--@g--.arlington.com
Subject: [Pigdog] AI skeptic


Hey you want to read a real weird book about computers taking over?  Check
out: 

_The Nature of Things:  The Secret Life of Inanimate Objects_  by Lyall
Watson.  

Watson says that we are witnessing the evolution of a new life form, and
he outlines the complexity of "inanimate life."  He says that human beings
are just a stage in the evolution of machines and that inamiate objects
are secretly manipulating us through dynamics we do not understand, which
are only apparent to us on the edges of our perception--things that we
know as coincidence, synchronicity, strange anomalous phenomena, and
"gremlins" in our machines (inexplicable machine crashes, etc.)  He
concludes with stuff like this:

	"They [computers] have established a formidable fifth
         column among us, a cadre imbued with such fierce loyalty
         that it rushes to protect computer installations
         whenever these seem to come under human threat.  The
         machines have effective control over most of the
         apparatus of the state.  All they lack, and all we
         still have to offer them, is soul."

	"...in the long term, there is no future for us."

Good stuff.

Zach

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