Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: gordon@idca.tds.philips.nl (Gordon Booman) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: A fallacy: That which evolved can be rationally designed. Message-ID: Date: 3 Jul 89 20:36:24 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Philips Telecommunication and Data Systems, The Netherlands Lines: 31 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article dmo@turkey.philips.com (Dan Offutt) writes: >... >The proposition "if X can evolve via biological evolution, then X can >be purposely designed" is false. >... If we're talking about designing an **exact** copy of the human brain, Dan is right. No one would ever design, on purpose, something so inefficient. :-) But seriously, folks. I think that Dan is misinterpreting the original suggestion: "that which evolved can be designed" as something more like: "a perfect copy of the brain can be designed", when it was clear that the intent was: "any function which evolved can be designed". I think there's a parallel with flight. Man tried for a long time to fly by gluing feathers to his arms and flapping. We've been able to fly now for close to a century; but we don't use feathers or flapping. "Man can't fly like a bird". Right. Who wants to? This is the danger of the Turing test. Intelligence doesn't have much to do with what people do (particulary some people :-). Intelligent machines, which we **already** have, don't act like people. Good thing, too. I certainly hope that when I download, I get some nice new algorithms to replace the mistakes of evolution. -- Gordon Booman SSP/V3 Philips TDS Apeldoorn, The Netherlands +31 55 432785 domain: gordon@idca.tds.philips.nl uucp: ...!mcvax!philapd!gordon