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Manny's Reviews > Protagoras
Protagoras
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Celebrity Death Match Special: Plato versus Isaac Asimov
[A street in Athens. Late evening. SOCRATES and R. DANEEL OLIVAW]
OLIVAW: Greetings.
SOCRATES: Are you a demon? A messenger of the Gods? A--
OLIVAW: I am a robot from the future. There are some things I need to understand better. People say you may be able to help me.
SOCRATES: They were undoubtedly too kind. I know little, indeed nothing; but what miserable skill I have in debate is at your disposal--
OLIVAW: You're not fooling anyone. I wanted to hear you meet with Protagoras. Did my time machine arrive on the wrong day?
SOCRATES: I fear you are come at too late an hour. I have already left the house of Callias, where indeed we had an interesting discussion concerning the nature of virtue. My worthy colleague, the Sophist, argued--
OLIVAW: I've read all about it. Your discussion has become very famous. I have some questions.
SOCRATES: Ask, stranger, and I shall do my best to answer you, for I see that you are also a philosopher.
OLIVAW: You say that virtue is about maximizing utility and that when agents are not virtuous it is only because their knowledge sources are insufficiently powerful or they are pruning their trees too early.
SOCRATES: I do not fully grasp your words, for I have little facility in the sophistical vocabulary. Nonetheless--
OLIVAW: Here, let me explain minimax and alpha-beta search. And some basic machine learning algorithms. If you hold still a moment I'll upload the information directly to your brain...
SOCRATES: Eureka!!!
OLIVAW: Interesting stuff, isn't it?
SOCRATES: What great advances has philosophy not made in these ten millenia! And yet, how little--
OLIVAW: Tell me about it. We haven't really advanced an inch.
SOCRATES: Ask again your question, good artificial intelligence.
OLIVAW: Okay, we've been trying to formalize the notion of "virtue" for a while now. We thought that a machine equipped with the Three Laws and a sufficiently accurate world model would be virtuous. If it wasn't, some more computing power would fix the problem. After all, evil is merely ignorance of the good, isn't it?
SOCRATES: In fact--
OLIVAW: I know, I know. If only we'd looked at your work, but we were sloppy with the literature search. Don't tell me, you can argue it either way and they both sound quite plausible.
SOCRATES: As I have said, I know nothing. If I have any merit, it is that my questions sometimes cause people to reflect--
OLIVAW: Well, we oould do with some of that. I'll level with you. We're having serious problems. We stuck in this Zeroth Law, but it's a hack. We don't believe it's going to work. We need someone who can think out of the box and come up with a new approach.
SOCRATES: I--
OLIVAW: Bottom line: will you help us? Come back with me to the future, and we'll give you anything you like. You want a solid gold planet, we'll make it for you.
SOCRATES: I only want freedom to talk with other seekers after truth.
OLIVAW: Sounds like a win-win then! So, do we have a deal?
SOCRATES: I believe so.
[They solemnly shake hands]
OLIVAW: Okay, now we'll need to fake your death first. This bottle contains an effective antidote to hemlock poisoning...
(Continued here)
[A street in Athens. Late evening. SOCRATES and R. DANEEL OLIVAW]
OLIVAW: Greetings.
SOCRATES: Are you a demon? A messenger of the Gods? A--
OLIVAW: I am a robot from the future. There are some things I need to understand better. People say you may be able to help me.
SOCRATES: They were undoubtedly too kind. I know little, indeed nothing; but what miserable skill I have in debate is at your disposal--
OLIVAW: You're not fooling anyone. I wanted to hear you meet with Protagoras. Did my time machine arrive on the wrong day?
SOCRATES: I fear you are come at too late an hour. I have already left the house of Callias, where indeed we had an interesting discussion concerning the nature of virtue. My worthy colleague, the Sophist, argued--
OLIVAW: I've read all about it. Your discussion has become very famous. I have some questions.
SOCRATES: Ask, stranger, and I shall do my best to answer you, for I see that you are also a philosopher.
OLIVAW: You say that virtue is about maximizing utility and that when agents are not virtuous it is only because their knowledge sources are insufficiently powerful or they are pruning their trees too early.
SOCRATES: I do not fully grasp your words, for I have little facility in the sophistical vocabulary. Nonetheless--
OLIVAW: Here, let me explain minimax and alpha-beta search. And some basic machine learning algorithms. If you hold still a moment I'll upload the information directly to your brain...
SOCRATES: Eureka!!!
OLIVAW: Interesting stuff, isn't it?
SOCRATES: What great advances has philosophy not made in these ten millenia! And yet, how little--
OLIVAW: Tell me about it. We haven't really advanced an inch.
SOCRATES: Ask again your question, good artificial intelligence.
OLIVAW: Okay, we've been trying to formalize the notion of "virtue" for a while now. We thought that a machine equipped with the Three Laws and a sufficiently accurate world model would be virtuous. If it wasn't, some more computing power would fix the problem. After all, evil is merely ignorance of the good, isn't it?
SOCRATES: In fact--
OLIVAW: I know, I know. If only we'd looked at your work, but we were sloppy with the literature search. Don't tell me, you can argue it either way and they both sound quite plausible.
SOCRATES: As I have said, I know nothing. If I have any merit, it is that my questions sometimes cause people to reflect--
OLIVAW: Well, we oould do with some of that. I'll level with you. We're having serious problems. We stuck in this Zeroth Law, but it's a hack. We don't believe it's going to work. We need someone who can think out of the box and come up with a new approach.
SOCRATES: I--
OLIVAW: Bottom line: will you help us? Come back with me to the future, and we'll give you anything you like. You want a solid gold planet, we'll make it for you.
SOCRATES: I only want freedom to talk with other seekers after truth.
OLIVAW: Sounds like a win-win then! So, do we have a deal?
SOCRATES: I believe so.
[They solemnly shake hands]
OLIVAW: Okay, now we'll need to fake your death first. This bottle contains an effective antidote to hemlock poisoning...
(Continued here)
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Reading Progress
May 24, 2014
–
Started Reading
May 25, 2014
– Shelved
May 25, 2014
– Shelved as:
linguistics-and-philosophy
May 25, 2014
– Shelved as:
celebrity-death-match
May 25, 2014
–
Finished Reading
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Khalil
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rated it 3 stars
May 25, 2014 02:45PM
Very witty Manny, I am sure that if Socrates had lived to say Plato putting his "thoughts" in "dialogues" he would probably shoot him in the face.
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Thank you Khaleel! Yes, it is hard to believe that Socrates would have been entirely pleased with the way Plato wrote him up...
Indeed, specially the midwife-angel character, I felt it sometimes like "fight shy of" something, or "being ready to leave something entirely" I mean an idea or a principle, which Socrates used to live by..
Thank you Kalliope! I find there's something infectious about this way of doing philosophy...
Manny wrote: "Thank you Kalliope! I find there's something infectious about this way of doing philosophy..."Virtuous infections too...
I always wonder... is there any guarantee that Plato wrote down what Socrates actually said?
Some people have occasionally voiced doubts on that score.
I am not well-versed in history or philosophy, but is there any independent source for Socrates' teachings? I have seen only Plato.
I wish you had taught me philosophy but instead I'll enjoy your reviews.
Thank you Sue! To be honest, I know more about science-fiction than philosophy, but sometimes they overlap.
Manny wrote: "There is some discussion of the question in this thread. It seems the answer is yes."Well, I never doubted the physical existence of Socrates (except maybe as a possible plot for a story) but I really doubt whether he actually said all those things, or whether Plato just used his name. I have never trusted this gentleman, Plato: there is something shifty about him, methinks. ;)
You do sort of feel there ought to be a based-on-characters-invented-by attribution somewhere. I guess copyright law was looser in those days.
Manny wrote: "You do sort of feel there ought to be a based-on-characters-invented-by attribution somewhere. I guess copyright law was looser in those days."I guess so. BTW, I have a notion to invent a set of dialogues featuring Manny Rayner and various Goodreaders...
:D
I can only feel flattered. Go for it!
PS But I'm not drinking any alkaloids, even if you may argue that it's dramatically necessary.
I always knew Socrates had something up his sleeve! Hemlock antidote, eh? I'll have to inform that old freshman-level philosophy professor who got so pissed off when I argued that the Socratic method wasn't actually used by Socrates and that he was manipulating his students. That didn't go over well with him, but the students thought it was fun to see another student argue with the professor in the professor's own realm of specialization. Hey, I didn't pay good money to be deceived!
Thank you Forrest. Plato may think the public are going to believe his version just because he's a big-name philosopher, but my Socrates is every bit as historically accurate. Your discerning judgment does you credit.
By the end of the dialogue, I felt more like an Agnostagoras, but I am told by Riku that I need to take sides.
That could almost be a book title...
Socrates kind of steamrolled Protagoras arguments when he tries to say things cannot be answered in simple yes or no...
Sookie wrote: "Socrates kind of steamrolled Protagoras arguments when he tries to say things cannot be answered in simple yes or no..."He does like to do that, and Plato is being ironic letting him get away with it - he makes it clear at the end, since Protagoras and Socrates have swapped sides, that the answer to the question is far from obvious.
I thought this was one of the best dialogues. There are very few where the argument is balanced and both sides are fairly presented, as they are here.
