[MD] Ever redefining self

[Ham Priday]

Ian, et al  --



> This concept [spandrels] is a cliche (a meme) in evolutionary circles.
>
> Anyway, the problem with the Engineering view of how reality came to
> be is that it seems to fall into the admission of a creative force -
> the blind watchmaker - intentionally creating the reality we see. It is
> of course just a metaphor for the "emergence" from many levels of
> interacting complexity - which "seem as if" they have design intent.

I'm not so sure that the Engineering View isn't what the MoQ has concocted.
Here we are, trying to 'retro-engineer' creation by drawing up a blueprint
of the universe, level by level, and designing patterns as the nuts and
bolts of it.  That's a task that calls for more than a skilled watchmaker,
even a sighted one.

Isn't it interesting that biologists and physicists see a need to explain
creation metaphorically; they know intuitively that the universe didn't get
here by the laws of probability, that the "inevitability" of energy
(nothingness?) building itself an intricate, self-sustaining cosmos in which
sentient life emerges has zero probability.  They search, constantly, for a
cosmic principle that will account for its design.  They won't find it, of
course, because the laws and principles they deal with are intellectual
constructs based on their limited experience of reality.

> One cannot imagine creating artificial consciousness, without first
> creating an artificial brain, with artificial life demands on it.
Arificial
> Evolution = Engineering. It would look pretty much like the real
> thing, even if it wasn't made of meat.
>
> That was a party political broadcast on behalf of Engineers everywhere :-)


You said it best: Artificial Evolution = Engineering.  Except that, in the
real world, consciousness is not made of meat and existence is not an
emergence of organized chaos, whatever it may "look like" to the finite
observer.

"Engineers everywhere" would be better advised to apply their skills to the
physical world they live in rather than trying to mechanize its Creator.

Regards,
Ham