That's really interesting and unfortunate you were unable to help move the conversation forward toward a more realistic understanding. I think it's probably a 'time and place' situation where you are in a class with a lot of different people intellectually and this kind of 'engineer think' can seem to distract from the heart of the conversation. Hard to say.
I think everything you are saying is actually more reason this is necessary, esp. right now as our understanding of machine learning and AI are beginning to yield some progress. And for some reason this reminds me of Krishnamurti and David Bohm conversing about the nature of consciousness - bringing together two worlds that typically are apart is really fascinating and ripe for new discovers of thought and understanding. All good things.
I think everything you are saying is actually more reason this is necessary, esp. right now as our understanding of machine learning and AI are beginning to yield some progress. And for some reason this reminds me of Krishnamurti and David Bohm conversing about the nature of consciousness - bringing together two worlds that typically are apart is really fascinating and ripe for new discovers of thought and understanding. All good things.
Some classic videos of their fascinating conversation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knu4ujA1rfU