Hubert L. Dreyfus, Philosopher of the Limits of Computers, Dies at 87

Hubert L. Dreyfus, Philosopher of the Limits of Computers, Dies at 87(nytimes.com)

13 points by hxrts 9 years ago | 4 comments

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...

eevilspock 9 years ago |

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.

tacon 9 years ago |

>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!

eevilspock 9 years ago | |

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.