On Tue, Jul 9, 2024 at 8:31 AM Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> My dictionary says the definition of "*prerequisite*" is "*a thing >> that is required as a prior condition for something else to happen or >> exist*". And >> it says the definition of "*cause*" is "*a person or thing that gives >> rise to an action, phenomenon, or condition*". So cause and prerequisite >> are synonyms. >> > > *> There's a subtle distinction. Muscles and bones are prerequisites for > limbs, but muscles and bones do not cause limbs.* > There are many things that caused limbs to come into existence, one of them was the existence of muscles, another was the existence of bones, and yet another was the help limbs gave to organisms in getting genes into the next generation. *> Lemons are a prerequisite for lemonade, but do not cause lemonade.* > You can't make lemonade without lemons, and lemons can't make lemonade without you. > *> I define intelligence by something capable of intelligent action.* > Intelligent action is what drove evolution to amplify intelligence, but if Stephen Hawking's voice generator had broken down for one hour I would still say I have reason to believe that he remained intelligent during that hour. *> Intelligent action requires non random choice:* > If it's non-random then by definition it is deterministic. > *Having information about the environment (i.e. perceptions) is > consciousness.* > But you can't have perceptions without intelligence, sight and sound would just be meaningless gibberish. > *You cannot have perceptions without there being some process or thing to > perceive them.* > Yes, and that thing is intelligence. *> Therefore perceptions (i.e. consciousness) is a requirement and > precondition of being able to perform intelligent actions.* > The only perceptions we have firsthand experience with are our own, so investigating perceptions is not very useful in Philosophy or in trying to figure out how the world works, but intelligence is another matter entirely. That's why in the last few years there has been enormous progress in figuring out how intelligence works, but nobody has found anything new to say about consciousness in centuries. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv0kBCxYZaN474fj0S5i5RBUGYZ_dHiU2a3b2mesTpyR2w%40mail.gmail.com.
