On Wed, 06 May 1998 Damien Broderick <damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au> Wrote:
>The Schrodinger equation is entirely deterministic.
That's true. Non determinism enters Quantum Mechanics because the Schrodinger
equation does not describe something in the real world, something concrete
like a position or a momentum, it describes the square root of a probability.
>There is no chaos at the quantal level.
True again, small changes in input do not lead to huge changes in output.
J. R. Molloy" <jr@shasta.com> On Tue, 5 May 1998 Wrote:
>>Me:
>>It's easy to prove that any computer can "remember", "associate"
>>and "analyze" input data.
>Not without the help of a computer operator.
Nonsense, millions of people use computers successfully without the slightest
understanding of how they work.
>>Me:
>>Intelligence has survival value,
>In some worlds, perhaps so. But it depends on your definition of
>intelligence.
Definitions alone are of no value in philosophy, just words describing words
that are themselves made of nothing but words. A Dictionary is one big
circular definition.
>Viruses seem quite robust, yet they don't demonstrate any equivalent
>intelligence to that of say, the average extropian.
Viruses don't need brains because their bodies are astronomically better at
spreading their genes that human bodies are. Even compared to other mammals
human bodies are inferior, our endurance is good but we're slow, weak, and
our teeth and claws are a joke. If our brain were no better than other
mammals we'd be long extinct, as it is we're the most common large animal on
earth.
>>Me:
>>random mutation and natural selection bother to make anything
>>sentient?
>It may turn out that life indeed finds sentience to be an
>unprofitable experiment.
Irrelevant. Evolution has no foresight, each mutation must confer a
reproductive advantage NOW or natural selection will not let it persist into
future generations. If sentience were not an inevitable product of
intelligence it would have never have evolved, and even if by some magic it
did genetic drift would not let us keep it, it would wither away as all
useless appendages do, just as the eyes of fish that have lived in dark caves
for millions of years did.
>>Me:
>>I know for a fact that evolution did bother to make at least one
>>thing conscious.
>There you go again. You say no test exists to determine consciousness
Yes.
>yet you claim that it nevertheless exists.
Yes. I need no test because my consciousness is one thing, the only thing,
that I have direct experience of, it's above logic, even if you had an
impeccable proof that I was not conscious I wouldn't be impressed. On the
other hand, I do need a test of your consciousness, but I don't have one and
never will.
John K Clark johnkc@well.com
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