Mixmaster said:
Because, as I have previously explained, I study. While neonates may
be constrained to learn only through direct experience and trial and
error, older human beings have the option of looking things up.

There are things that have to be experienced in order to understand them.

Consider for a moment the notion of consciousness and "artificial
intellegence". I have no doubt that one day computers could be
programmed to converse in English. They will have huge databanks of
words, appropriate useages, rules for formulating replies, rules for
inferring context, files full of slang terms, and all sorts of stuff
like that so that one could type ordinary English into the machine, have
a conversation, and wonder if the computer on the other end is really a
machine or an actual human being. With enough computing power and a big
enough rule set, such a machine would be able to do far better than
Eliza's "answer a question with a reformulated question" paradigm. You
could, for example, start typing about baseball, and it would seem like
you were talking with a real fan, who though he may not know everything
about the game, is interested in and able to fill in the gaps.

Does this machine =understand= baseball?

I would say no. Until it has actually swung a bat and run around the
bases, heard the roar of the crowd, eaten a hot dog at the stadium,
fingered the trading cards and chewed the bubblegum, and walked across
the empty field after a game, this machine does =not= "understand"
baseball. It has merely evidenced appropriate responses to a stream of
ASCII.

This is not "understanding".

And this is where, in the context of aviation, you sit. You don't
=understand= flying, even though you may type as if you think you do.

If you want to understand what it is that makes a pilot want to fly, you
need to actually fly through the air yourself. It's visceral. It's
real. It's what life is made of. There is no alternative to real
understanding. Now, having actually done so, you may disagree, you may
find it's not for you, you may find you were right all along. But you
will =understand= in a way you couldn't possibly understand now just why
you were right. Alternatively, you may discover that you were actually
wrong, but this way you will understand in your soul what the big deal
is about, and you will see why you were wrong in a way that no amount of
Usenet posting will show you.

Take a flight. Just one. Then come back.

Jose
--
"Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where
it keeps its brain." (chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter).
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