Children debating the most obvious thing possible, lol. On Tuesday, 11 March 2025 at 14:29:36 UTC+2 John Clark wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 11, 2025 at 1:54 AM Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: > > *>>2) Natural selection can see intelligent behavior but it can't see >>> consciousness.* >> >> >> * > That's questionable.* > > > *I don't think there is anything we can be more sure about than natural > selection can't see consciousness. And you can't see it either except in > yourself. * > > >> *> I can certainly see the difference between conscious and unconscious.* > > > *No you cannot!* > > >> * > Conscious thought in the sense of imagining scenarios* > > > *But the thing is, you may be able to "imagine scenarios" but natural > selection can not. And there is no reason to think your "imaginary > scenarios" correspond with anything in the physical world. * > > >> *> with one's self in them is pretty damned useful.* >> > > *I could not say this two years ago but today if you could only observe > what an intelligent agent did then not only natural selection but also YOU > could not tell if it was performed by an AI or a human, provided that the > AI pretended to be stupider and think slower than it really can. * > > *>> 1) Why do you think definitions are better than examples?* >> >> > > *> Examples are more ambiguous.* >> > > > *Examples can contain such little ambiguity that even a child is not > confused by them. You didn't learn English by reading a dictionary, you > learned it because some adult pointed to a tall thing in the ground that > had green stuff at the top and said "tree". All definitions are ultimately > circular, that's why if you're totally unfamiliar with a concept in higher > mathematics a definition of that concept will not help you understand it, > it'll just be a bunch of gobbledygook, unless somewhere in that definition > there are words equivalent to "such as". * > > >>> *>> 2) Where do you think lexicographers obtained the knowledge they >>> needed to write the definitions that are in their dictionaries? **3) >>> Are definitions of words also made of words, and do those words in the >>> definition also have definitions made of words, **and do those words in >>> the definition of the definition of words also have definitions made of >>> words, and ....?* >> >> >> *> They terminate in ostensive definitions which are special examples* >> > > *Yes examples, if you dig deep enough into a definition you'll always come > to an example at its root, or at least you will if the definition is worth > a damn. * > > >> *>>4) What is the definition of "definition"? * >> >> >> >> *> A description that picks out a single meaning of a word.* >> > > *I asked Google for a synonym for the word "meaning" and it listed a bunch > of them, but the very first one was "definition". And I asked for > a synonym for "description" and it said "exemplification". As I said , all > definitions are ultimately circular. Without examples language would be > useless because there would be no way to make a connection between the > squiggles on a page and something in the real world, a dictionary would > just be a book that links one squiggle to another squiggle. * > > *John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis > <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>* > > tbs > > -- 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 view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/802111d6-3f36-4a7f-9ce8-1c4c424f6c25n%40googlegroups.com.
