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Dan Ackerfeld's avatar

That Kastrup book looks super interesting. I've put it on my wishlist.

On Aussie archaeology/anthropology: it must be the most frustrating thing in the world trying to make progress in these fields. The political/ideological pressure to keep to certain interpretations is immense, and now that they're even re-burying past discoveries, I can't see how anything ground-breaking (literally!) could be achieved. I'm sure there are now ways to view and study things under the earth without digging them up, but surely nothing beats having a real bone/tool/etc. in your hands.

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Dan Ackerfeld's avatar

Update: got the audiobook!

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Andrew Cutler's avatar

The structure should work pretty well for audio. They are big ideas, but there is no single line that I had to reread many times to get. The last third of the book is an extended allegory which brings his arguments together

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Dan Ackerfeld's avatar

I'm enjoying it. I actually jumped straight to part three to read his 'modern myth', which so far hasn't caused me any issues.

On the book club idea - I wasn't planning to do anything like that, but it might actually be interesting to do. I have someone else in mind who might be interested, I'll DM you

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Andrew Cutler's avatar

I meant to catch you on the last one with the Roger's Bacon essay, but something came up

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Andrew Cutler's avatar

If you do a book club make sure to ping me as I'd like to join

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David Burkett's avatar

GPT-4.5 has never stubbed its toe! Sometimes you do experience reality directly!

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David Burkett's avatar

AI can learn more much information than us. And do so much with that information. But it comes up short in experience. Of course, it also lacks the DNA history we each have as well. I could say AI lacks a place in the world and an experience of the world, though it knows so much about the world of human experience and the world of human imagination, speculation, fable, mythology and reason.

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Andrew Cutler's avatar

WRT idealism, the claim is that mind is all that ultimately exists and GPT has no mind. So it has never known or learned a thing, the same way a lookup table lacks those qualities

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