> > > d) you keep repeating the illusion that evolution did NOT achieve the > airplane and other machines - oh yes, it did - your central illusion here > is > that machines are independent species. They're not. They are > EXTENSIONS of > human beings, and don't work without human beings attached. Manifestly > evolution has taken several stages to perfect tool/machine-using species - > of whom we are only the latest version - I refer you to my good colleague, > the tool-using-and-creating Caledonian crow. > > Yes, somehow, we are going to create the first independent machine species > - > but there's a big unanswered set of questions as to how .
It can be said that the emergence of human intelligence and human cultures set of another kind of technological evolution on top of the biological one. That these two forms of evolution can be seen as separate, can be explained as follows: Biological evolution works through DNA sequences, genes. The survivability of genes, depend on whether they are a part of successful biological lifeforms. Technological evolution works through sets of ideas, or memes that grow in our culture and in the minds of human beings. The survivability of memes depend on whether they are "appealing" to human minds. Whether a meme is appealing or not, could depend on a number of factors, such as whether the meme could help humans to achieve some of their goals, whether they are self-contradicting, or whether we can understand them etc. Memes can even survive outside the brain of humans, stored in books etc. The reason why technological innovations works with such great strides, is first because memes are produced at an incredible rate compared to genes; they are software based instead of hardware based. But more importantly, because memes can be selected based on logical deduction and the consideration of a predicted future. Thus, the survivability of memes depend on how well we believe them to help us in the future. I think it would be more accurate to say that technological meme evolution *was caused by *the biological evolution, rather than being *the extension of it*, since they are in fact two quite different evolutionary systems, with different kinds of populations/survival conditions. I would say that in some sense, there is already a machine species, even if not independent. This machine species just have not yet found a way of staying alive and breed outside human minds. Is this a helpful perspective? :-)... One key issue here, is whether we want to consider hardware and software evolutionary systems, or just hardware based evolutionary systems. Also, I admit that maybe I am not using the concept of "species" in any stringent way. ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=95818715-a78a9b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
