On Friday, March 7, 2014 7:14:15 AM UTC-5, telmo_menezes wrote: > > Hi Craig, > > > On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 5:46 AM, Craig Weinberg > <[email protected]<javascript:> > > wrote: > >> If the doctor became more ambitious, and decided to replace a species >> with a simulation, we have a ready example of what it might be like. Cars >> have replaced the functionality of horses in human society. They reproduce >> in a different, more centralized way, but otherwise they move around like >> horses, carry people and their possessions like horses, they even evolve >> into new styles over time. >> > > But cars are an implementation of the very small subset of horseness that > humans care about. One single cell of a horse is orders of greatness more > complex than a car. Why would you expect such a kludge to evolve > structurally? >
Exactly. Just as cars are based on a small subset of horseness that humans care about, the descriptions of consciousness that modal logic cares about are equally narrow. > >> >> Notice, however, that despite our occasional use of a name like Pinto or >> Mustang, no horse-like properties have emerged from cars. >> > > A few have, at the social level. For example, cars evolved in > social-meme-space as a way to impress the ladies and as a sports activity. > That could be a property of any number of things though, not just horses in particular. > > >> They do not whinny or swat flies. They do not get spooked and send their >> drivers careening off of the road. They did not develop DNA. Certainly a >> car does not perform as many complex computations as a horse, but neither >> does it need to. The function of a horse really doesn't need to be very >> complicated. A Google self-driving car is a better horse for almost all >> practical purposes than a horse. >> >> Maybe the doctor can replace all species with a functional equivalent? We >> could even do without all of the moving around and just keep the cars in >> the factory in which they are built and include a simulation screen on each >> windshield that interacts with Google Maps. With a powerful enough >> artificial intelligence, why not replace function altogether? >> > > That's the entire point of technology -- but funnily enough most > technology fetishists don't realize it. Deep down they know that they > actually like the gadget for it's own sake, but they always talk of > "productivity". Productivity towards what? A question rarely asked in this > philosophy-starved society. We want our experiences to be richer and > richer, as god-like as possible. Function has nothing to do with it. > I agree. Function has no function. Craig > > Cheers > Telmo. > > >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] <javascript:>. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<javascript:> >> . >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
