On 11/26/2014 10:28 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 6:56 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> I don't agree with John that intelligence is necessarily accompanied by
human-like
consciousness. His argument is based on evolution, i.e. that if
intelligence could
exist without consciousness then it would evolved that way. But evolution
can be
driven by historical accident.
If Evolution just stumbled onto consciousness because a astronomically unlikely mutation
occurred and not because it was the byproduct of intelligence then it would be of
neutral survival value and the human race would have lost that property long ago by
genetic drift.
No, because consciousness might be a necessary byproduct of human like intelligence, but
not of all possible ways to achieving intelligence. Evolution is constrained in what
adaptations it can develop. So having two legs is a necessary byproduct of human
intelligent, because starting with four limbs that's the only way to free up two for
manipulation of objects. But that doesn't mean having two legs is a necessary byproduct
of intelligence in general (c.f. octopi).
Brent
That's the reason creatures that have lived in dark caves for thousands of generations
have no eyes; elsewhere a mutation that rendered a creature blind would be a disaster
but in a pitch dark cave it wouldn't hinder its genes getting into the next generation
at all. In fact lack of eyes would be a advantage, all the resources needed to make a
complex organ like the eye could be directed into something more useful, like having
more offspring.
There are only 2 options, consciousness improves the survival of a organism or it does
not, lets examine both possibilities. If consciousness improves survival it can only do
so by effecting the behavior of the animal and then we must conclude that the Turing
Test works for consciousness as well as intelligence. If on the other hand
consciousness does not effect behavior then it MUST be a byproduct of something else
that does (like intelligence) or Evolution would never have produced it and never have
kept it even if it had, and yet I know for a fact Evolution HAS produced consciousness
at least once (me)and probably many billions of times.
John K Clark
--
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]
<mailto:[email protected]>.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>.
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.
