Re: ECON The Abolition Of Work

ChuckKuecker (ckuecker@mcs.net)
Mon, 4 May 1998 10:18:02 -0500 (CDT)


At 23:37 5/3/98 -0700, you wrote:
>> >highly intelligent entities may completely lack sentience.
>
>
>I've been asking this question for years on this list but have never received
>an answer, if what you say is true what's the point of sentience?
>Intelligence has survival value, but if the two are unrelated why would
>random mutation and natural selection bother to make anything sentient?
>It seems to me it would be like a fifth wheel, and yet I know for a fact that
>evolution did bother to make at least one thing conscious.
>

How can intelligence have any survival value if it can not sense and
interpret it's environment? A super intelligent entity that can't tell its'
been eaten by a mouse is not much good..

Sentience and intelligence must work together. All animals are sentient, but
there are great differences in intellighence.

I have a cat sleeping on my monitor as I type. She is definitely sentient,
and intelligent, but I can easily outsmart her in many ways. She exhibits
conciousness of herself and other beings. Abstract thought, though - now
there's a thorny thing to define and test for..

We need better definitions here..

Chuck Kuecker