Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!apple!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!watson!jgsmith
From: jgsmith@watson.bcm.tmc.edu (James G. Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: emergent properties
Summary: a few thoughts from a student
Keywords: Sparseness_Theory
Message-ID: <2141@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu>
Date: 5 Oct 90 17:48:52 GMT
References: <3499@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <1990Oct3.183522.17076@riacs.edu> <4152@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu>
Sender: usenet@bcm.tmc.edu
Lines: 30
Nntp-Posting-Host: bcm.tmc.edu



Just a few quickies.  (Oh how long for the eloquence of others.)

1.  Conscious machines.

In someone's discussion about what will be required to consider machines
conscious, it seemed to be that they were including being human in the 
definition of consciousness.  My conclusion is that we will be able to call
a man-made machine conscious after we have examined the machine which is
ourselves and determined how "consciousness" emerges from that machine.  Those
man-made machines which mimic that emergence will be considered conscious.   My
problem with this is that "consciousness" is a spectrum, and to decide that
something is conscious or not is to create an arbitrary cut off point.

2.  Intelligence as better for life.

The question was raised as to whether it was better to be intelligent, and
perhaps rational.  The answer to that depends on choosing a goal, and that
choice is arbitrary.  If the goal is to be happy, the well known answer is
probably not. (Ignorance is bliss).  If the goal is survival of the species,
I would say that chances are fairly good that it is better to be intelligent.
My conclusion is based mostly on the idea that a species that can locate itself
on more than one planet is most likely to survive longest, and my bet is that
only an intelligent species is going to be able to do that efficiently.  (Other
species will certainly tag along, but are not as likely to become as wide 
spread as the intelligent one.)

*
(student of Immunology, BTW)