On Friday, November 16, 2012 5:55:41 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote: > > Hi Craig Weinberg > > I agree with what you say, but there's no need to humanize > the coffee filters nor humanize intelligence or consciousness. > I'm not talking here about IQ. My point (speaking here as Leibniz) is > that > nature down to the lowliest beings (a grain of sand) has intelligence > of some sort. Nature is alive, and life is intelligence. >
My point though is just because we put fibers into a mold or dots on a page into a form we can recognize doesn't mean that we have created new life and intelligence. There is a difference between assembling something from tiny spatial-object parts and something reproducing itself from teleological-experiential wholes. A mannequin is not a person. The plaster and steel the mannequin is made of may certainly have a quality of experience, and although it is hard to speculate on exactly what kinds of experiences those are or what level of microcosm or macrocosm they are associated with, one thing that I am quite certain of is that the plaster and steel mannequin is not having the experience of a human person, no matter how convincing of a mannequin it looks to us to be. The same goes for cartoons, drawings, photos, movies..those things aren't alive or intelligent, but they are made of things which, on some level, are capable of sense participation. Computers are just a more pronounced example. As they improve they may be more convincing imitations of our human intelligence, but that quality of awareness is only a recorded reflection of our own, it is not being generated by nature directly and it is neither alive nor intelligent. Craig > > [Roger Clough], [rclo...@verizon.net] <javascript:> > 11/16/2012 > "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen > > > ----- Receiving the following content ----- > *From:* Craig Weinberg <javascript:> > *Receiver:* everything-list <javascript:> > *Time:* 2012-11-15, 13:53:48 > *Subject:* Re: Re: My embarassing misunderstanding of the intelligence > ofcomputers > > > > On Thursday, November 15, 2012 9:42:25 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote: >> >> Hi Craig Weinberg >> >> Everything has at least some intelligence or consciousness, according to >> Leibniz's metaphysics, >> even rocks. But these "bare naked monads" are essentially in deep, >> drugged sleep and darkness, >> or at best drunk. Leibniz called such a state the unconscious way before >> Freud and Jung. >> > > I believe that there is an experience on the micro-level of what the > coffee filter is made of - molecules held together as fibers maybe, bit I > don't think that it knows or cares about filtering. It's like if you write > the letters A and B on a piece of paper - I think there is an experience > there on the molecular level, of adhesion, evaporation, maybe other > interesting things we will never know, but I don't think that the letter A > knows that there is a letter B there. Do you? I don't think the letters > have a consciousness because they aren't actually beings, the patterns > which they embody to us are in our experience, not independent beings. > > Craig > >> >> [Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net] >> 11/15/2012 >> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen >> >> >> ----- Receiving the following content ----- >> *From:* Craig Weinberg >> *Receiver:* everything-list >> *Time:* 2012-11-12, 09:54:53 >> *Subject:* Re: My embarassing misunderstanding of the intelligence of >> computers >> >> Doesn't mean that a coffee filter is intelligent too? If so, is a >> series of coffee filters more intelligent than one? What about one with a >> hole in it? >> >> Craig >> >> >> On Sunday, November 11, 2012 8:14:05 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote: >>> >>> Hi >>> >>> I was wrong. >>> >>> According to my own definition of intelligence-- that it is the >>> ability of an entity, having at least some measure of free will, >>> to make choices on its own (without outside help)-- a >>> computer can have intelligence, and intelligence in no small measure. >>> >>> The ability to sort is an example. To give a simple example, a >>> computer can sort information, just as Maxwell's Demon could, >>> into two bins. Instead of temperature, it could just be a number. >>> Numbers larger than A go into one bin, smaller than A go >>> into another bin. It does it all on its own, using an "if" statement. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net >>> 11/11/2012 >>> "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen >>> >> -- >> 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/-/4uRvNZH9oIsJ. >> To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> everything-li...@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. >> >> -- > 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/-/Ewl6J7rU8jgJ. > To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com<javascript:> > . > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > everything-li...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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