Because of my experience with programming and working with computation, I find it extremely unlikely that, out of all possible things, the specific way humans conceptualize persuasion and arguments would be a necessary requirement for any "mind" (which I take here as a 'sentient' algorithm in the largest sense) to function.
If the way we process these things called "arguments" is not a requirement for a mind, then there almost certainly exists at least one logically-possible mind design which does not have this way of processing things we call "arguments".
As another intuition, if we adopt the Occam/Solomonoff philosophy for what is required to have a "mind", then something as complicated as the process of understanding arguments, being affected, influenced or persuaded by them, by running through filters and comparing with prior knowledge and so on until some arguments convince or do not convince... that must be required for all possible minds as a component of an already-complex system called "minds"... sounds extremely much less common in the realm of all possible universes than the universes where simpler minds exist that do not have this property of understanding arguments and being moved by them.
I find it extremely unlikely that, out of all possible things, the specific way humans conceptualize persuasion and arguments would be a necessary requirement for any "mind" (which I take here as a 'sentient' algorithm in the largest sense) to function.
I don't have any experience with programming at all, and that may be the problem: I just don't see these reasons. To my mind (ha) a mind incapable of processing arguments, which is to say holding reasons in rational relations to each other or connecting premises and conclusions up in justificato... (read more)
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.