
Hubert L. Dreyfus, Philosopher of the Limits of Computers, Dies at 87 - hxrts
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/us/hubert-dreyfus-dead-philosopher-of-artificial-intelligence.html
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richardjdare
I loved his lecture series on Heidegger's "Being and Time". It helped me
finally understand what continental philosophy was all about. I first heard it
on iTunes U but it's also on archive.org:

[https://archive.org/details/Philosophy_185_Fall_2007_UC_Berk...](https://archive.org/details/Philosophy_185_Fall_2007_UC_Berkeley)

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eevilspock
Dreyfus was my favorite Berkeley professor, and taught my favorite undergrad
course, _Existentialism in Literature and Film_ , in which he introduced me to
Kierkegaard, Camus, Marguerite Duras's _Hiroshima mon amour_ , and Graham
Greene's _The Third Man_. His Heidegger class was also great, and there he
also introduced us to Maurice Merleau-Ponty. I loved his lectures and he was
also a nice guy... a lot nicer and more approachable than his also famous
colleague John Searle.

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tacon
>For his 2006 book “Philosophy: The Latest Answers to the Oldest Questions,”
Nicholas Fearn broached the topic of artificial intelligence in an interview
with Professor Dreyfus, who told him: “I don’t think about computers anymore.
I figure I won and it’s over: They’ve given up.”

Them's fighting words!

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eevilspock
I think it's important to understand that Dreyfus doesn't think that AI is not
possible, but that it's not possible via _computation_ , i.e. computers. He
considers consciousness and understanding as emergent properties, not
something you can code. He also used Heidegger's concept of _Dasein_ , "being
in the world" as Dreyfus translated it, and argued that such being can't be
programmed.

