[stephanfroede]

You touched the core of the discussion, imo, that is there are two schools of thaught involved.

One sees the universe and anything else as a machine -> determinism

The others are seeing the universe as a discrete continuum -> indeterminism

That is also my fundamental criticism at the current approach, it is not even considering the possibility that the whole approach could be wrong.

I think intelligent machines are possible, but not without much more fundamental understanding. Hyping, cheering deep learning and all this stuff, is just irrational and illogical.

[aninhumer]

Surely the more relevant dichotomy here is monism(materialism) vs dualism?

For those who find determinism unsatifying, I doubt indeterminism feels like much of an improvement.

[stephanfroede]

Dualism is a part of it, but dualism is more an ethical question.

Indeterminism is more about emergence, quantum fields and such things. How the universe works.

My impression is that a lot of science that is applied to intelligent machines is based on a deterministic physical model based on Newton and LaPlace. The Bayesian networks was pioneered 200 years ago by LaPlace for example. But how is Einsteins relativity theory applied? Or quantum fields?

There are two different models of the universe involved the "old" deterministic model and the "new" indeterministic model (see Karl Popper -> Open Universe -> http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/288137.The_Open_Universe).

May be it make sense to bring some newer approaches into the game, instead of reapplying again and again the same approach.