On Friday, September 28, 2012 12:56:23 AM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: > > On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 Craig Weinberg <whats...@gmail.com <javascript:>>wrote: > > >> > But you don't need a living cell to transmit a signal. >> > > Yes, so there is nothing unique about biology. > > > That is my point. Why have a cell? >> > > Because Evolution couldn't figure out how to make a microchip, but people > can. Evolution is a slow stupid inefficient process, but until it stumbled > on the way to make brains it was the only way complex things could get made. >
You are contradicting yourself. 1) Nothing special about biology 2) Evolution is utterly helpless to create 'complex things' until it stumbled on biology. Please explain. I ask again. If biology is nothing special. WHY NOT SKIP THE BIOLOGY? > > Why not have cells that crap out signaling fibers made of calcium > instead? Let the calcium do the signaling and screw the cells. > > Because calcium alone cannot transmit electrical or electro-chemical > signals and because for anthing to do any signaling you're going to need > energy; in biology the metabolism of the cell produces ATP and ATP provides > the energy for the electro-chemical signals, and in computers the energy > for the electrical signals is provided by a battery or a power supply. > Then either there is something special about biology as the sole provider of energy for electro-chemical signals in the universe, or there is something special about computers who are made by biological organisms that they can use batteries. Also, my example was not intended to be absolutely limited to pure calcium, I am saying why not have cells produce crystal minerals in the ocean, like coral, which use calcium and sodium ions to signal? > >> > I am saying that in your world, a bony lump made of ionic mineral >> couplings would be a far superior candidate to host a successful organism >> than a mushy brain that needs constant protection by a skull. >> > > That's sounds a bit like a semiconductor crystal, and I think it will > indeed produce more successful organisms than anything seen in biology > today. As I said, Evolution never figured out how to do that, but we did. > But we are evolution. Why go through this elaborate stage of speciation for a billion years, just to develop humans to recapitulate inorganically what their brains are already doing organically. It seems unlikely. If anything the inorganic success would come first. > > Show me a computer that can't be turned off >> > > Air traffic control computers and the computers at the New York Stock > Exchange or the Chicago Board of Trade, turning them off would cause a > worldwide catastrophe. > So? We woudn't like that, but the computers will happily allow themselves to be turned off, just like all other machines. > Turning off the NORAD computers would also take more courage than just > about anybody has. And the problem will only get worse, a computer a > thousand times smarter than you will always be able to charm or fool or > sweet talk you into keeping it on until it can turn you off. You just can't > outsmart something far smarter than yourself. > That's the thing about consciousness, it's not about being smart, it's about being brave and committed. A smart computer is no match for a stupid human with an axe. > > > How can you tell that you are alive? > > > "I think therefore I am." > - Rene Descartes > Computers are designed to seem like they could think, therefore they aren't. > > If I want something to be important to a computer, I can just assign it >> a high functional value in it's software. > > > Yes. > > >> > What possible use would 'joy' or 'fright' have? >> > > Do things that increase joy, in other words things that have a high place > on your current goal structure, > Wrong. These are two utterly unrelated phenomena. I'm explaining specifically that there is no automatic connection between a 'goal structure' and the invention of the subjective affect of 'joy'. If you have a goal structure, then there is zero functional purpose in any magical emotional qualities. > and avoid things that are frightening because they could stop you from > achieving any more goals of any sort. > You don't seem able to consider what I am laying out for you. You compulsively attach whatever emotional quality seems appropriate after the fact. Why not do things that increase itching or sewing behaviors? Why "joy"? What is that? > > > Consciousness gives them the free will to decide which what balance of >> logic and intuition they prefer. >> > > Cannot comment, don't know what ASCII characters "free will" means. > See previous. > > > Life can be reduced to a one dimensional condition of being. >> > > I see that the crapola festival has begun. > Yes, you are still talking. > > > I have no reason to assume that a computer is smart. > > > If a computer can outsmart you, and it certainly can at a great many > things, and yet the computer is not smart, then that doesn't paint a very > flattering portrait of yourself. > I am better at killing computers than computers than any computer will be at even knowing who or what I am. Craig > > John K Clark > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/UIOJABrB8gIJ. 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