[MD] Quality Conversations

[David M]

Hi Ian
]
Is there intelligence at life's lower levels or only
with the higher animals do you think?

David M

> Matt, Krim, DM,
>
> (Sorry been outta circulation for a week)
>
> Not quite Matt.
>
> I'm saying even the "life" does not (necessarily) have to be
> biological. That could arise in complex systems. My point is that life
> will preceed intelligence (as it does in the MoQ) wherever it arises.
>
> The "artificiality" is simply a matter of perception (was my other
> point). ie seeing non-biological-life and thinking-with-non-meat as
> "artificial" is just our anthropocentic perspective. Being
> "engineered" is only one possible take on being artificial. - I don't
> believe life or intelligence will ever be "engineered" - not directly
> anyway ... as I went on to say.
>
> Ian
>
> On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 8:23 PM, Matt Kundert
> <pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hey Krimel,
>>
>> Krimel said to Ian:
>> You are right I must be missing your point. If you are saying that "life" 
>> or "intelligence" can arise "naturally" out of printed circuits then I 
>> don't think we are even using the same language. When you say 
>> intelligence is not inherent in biological systems or that genes produce 
>> brains but not intelligence this just seems to be adding subtlety at the 
>> expense of intelligibility.
>>
>> Matt:
>> To intercede in a conversation I haven't been following closely at all, I 
>> think Ian's point is that the idea behind the natural/artificial 
>> distinction may be misplaced when talking about the idea of robots 
>> someday having minds/consciousness like humans.  As a pragmatist, I think 
>> Ian's stance is that the mind/consciousness evolved naturally out of 
>> biological evolution, that cultural evolution is predicated on 
>> biological, that whatever the mind is, it is basically what happens when 
>> biological processes get really, really complex.  For pragmatists, 
>> traveling up what used to be called the Great Chain of Being, or up 
>> Pirsig's static levels, is at root a continuum of complexity.
>>
>> I think the example that is in point is Asimov's story that got made into 
>> the Will Smith movie, I, Robot.  At that level of robotic complexity, 
>> we--as viewers in addition to the characters--have trouble knowing 
>> whether we should treat them as "one of us," i.e. whether moral/legal 
>> categories apply to them and how.  _This_ is the pertinent question--not 
>> how they came to be.  The natural/artificial distinction becomes 
>> outmoded.
>>
>> Besides, I think Ian might also be playing at breaking down the 
>> distinction along the lines of, "When did our activities cease to be 
>> natural?"  One can cry foul for common sense, but as a philosophical 
>> point, I have some sympathy because of our Enlightenment philosophical 
>> heritage, which treats "natural" as a moral category of approbation, and 
>> hence Will Smith's difficulty in treating robots morally (ya' know, 
>> feeling remorse for shooting them in the head and such).
>>
>> Matt
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