Russell, please: what is your take on "INTELLIGENT"? John Mikes On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 8:20 PM, Russell Standish <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 01, 2015 at 11:23:47PM -0800, Pierz wrote: > > > > > > On Sunday, November 1, 2015 at 8:39:12 PM UTC+11, Russell Standish wrote: > > > > > > On Sat, Oct 31, 2015 at 08:55:09PM -0700, Pierz wrote: > > > > > > > > Anyway it seems that if we're committed to computationalism plus > Church > > > > thesis, then we have to consider the possibility that evolution may > be a > > > > conscious process - indeed the onus should be on us to say why it > > > *wouldn't* be > > > > conscious. > > > > > > I don't think we know enough about consciousness to really say one way > > > or the other, so no the onus is not on anyone. > > > > > > "Onus" or not, computationalists should at least attempt to be > consistent. > > If genetic algorithms are considered potentially conscious, then it is > > legitimate to ask why evolution itself would not be. One should examine > all > > the ramifications of a theory and not simply wave the uncomfortable ones > > away by saying "we can't know." It's often in the pursuit of the > > To be fair, I never said "we can't know". What I said is "we don't > know". I think it premature to speculate whether biological evolution > implements a conscious program, in other words, maybe fun for pub > talk, but generally speaking a waste of time. > > > implications of a theory to the last possible limit that things get > > interesting - think Einstein pursuing the constancy of the speed of light > > Sure - but there are plenty of ways of doing this without falling over > into idle speculation. The notion that consciousness is an > evolutionary process does have some testable claims, for example. > > > to its logical conclusion. It's also where the theory's flaws are likely > to > > be exposed. It seems to me though that computationalists are generally > > mainly interested in explaining away the apparent mystery of the Hard > > Problem of consciousness in the brain, rather than overturning the > > conception of nature as an unconscious machine. But that *is* what it > leads > > to ISTM - at least the Putnamesque, functional type version of CTM. > > > > How so? It's not at all clear it has anything to say on these matters. > > > -- > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Principal, High Performance Coders > Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] > University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -- > 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. > -- 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.
