Intelligent Evolution?

[cyborg]

This completely misses the point

Nope, it doesn't.

In other words, it makes no sense to talk about "atoms of intelligence" since intelligence itself emerges from the interactions of many particles in a system.

Exactly - so why do you persist talking with language as if "intelligence" "exists"?

 

[jimbob]

Do you think it will help to explain evolutoin to anybody by pretending that intelligence doesn't exist?

Indeed that the concept of intelligence is meaningless.

It is easier, and more accurate to say that intelligently designed systems and evolved systems have different types of signatures, and organisms which havent been genetically engineered have the features of evolved and not designed systems.

These can be pointed out :

Unintelligent Design is a good parody of ID

ETA:

We hereby propose that a new debate be held, including members of the scientific community to argue that evolution should be taught as is, members of SEAO or the Intelligent Design Network, Inc. to argue that life shows evidence of an intelligent, omnipotent creator, and member of our organization to argue that although life was designed by an all-powerful creator, he is in reality pretty dumb and not very good at it.

 

[Apathia]

Nice, Apathia.

I take no credit. It wrote itself.

 

[cyborg]

Do you think it will help to explain evolutoin to anybody by pretending that intelligence doesn't exist?

No.

Indeed that the concept of intelligence is meaningless.

No concept has any meaning without an expression.

It is easier, and more accurate to say that intelligently designed systems and evolved systems have different types of signatures, and organisms which havent been genetically engineered have the features of evolved and not designed systems.

It is easier sure. It is not more accurate.

But please, continue pretending otherwise. Please continue denying the way human systems are actually designed. Your ivory tower view of the world is a nonsense.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Nope, it doesn't.

Exactly - so why do you persist talking with language as if "intelligence" "exists"?

Yes your demand that I name an "atom of intelligently" actually does miss the point, and quite spectacularly so. You seem to be trying to say that since intelligence cannot be decomposed into, for example, individual neurons, it doesn't exist. You might as claim that wetness, color, and friction don't exist because individual atoms or molecules don't display these properties.

 

[cyborg]

Yes your demand that I name an "atom of intelligently" actually does miss the point, and quite spectacularly so.

Not even slightly.

You seem to be trying to say that since intelligence cannot be decomposed into, for example, individual neurons, it doesn't exist.

And if you understood the notion of existence you'd understood why this is so.

You might as claim that wetness, color, and friction don't exist because individual atoms or molecules don't display these properties.

Yes.

 

[mijopaalmc]

I take no credit. It wrote itself.

As it most certainly would have had the characters been randomly generated?

 

[mijopaalmc]

And if you understood the notion of existence you'd understood why this is so.

What, pray tell, Great Sage, is existence?

 

[cyborg]

A proposition you do not understand.

 

[mijopaalmc]

A proposition you do not understand.

How convenient for you. You avoid having to acknowledge the vacuity of your concepts by refusing to explain them.

 

[cyborg]

I've explained them many times to you - in this thread and elsewhere. I fail to see why I should do so again since it is unlikely that you will acknowledge your misconceptions this time around.

 

[mijopaalmc]

I've explained them many times to you - in this thread and elsewhere. I fail to see why I should do so again since it is unlikely that you will acknowledge your misconceptions this time around.

Well, if, as you claim, you have actually explained concepts to me many times, you should be able to produce at least one or two posts that you feel do it especially well. I am leaving open the possibility that I have continually misinterpreted your posts so I would like you to provide some posts that you think I misinterpreted.

 

[Apathia]

As it most certainly would have had the characters been randomly generated?

It evolved. I, myself, am just a headpiece full of straw.

"Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow"

 

[cyborg]

mijo I am not going to trawl back over my posts.

It is quite simple really: your problem is your inability to appreciate the nature of models, what it means to abstract and what it means to have multiple levels of abstractions building up a model.

At higher levels of abstraction detail is ignored. It is valid to talk about "wetness" "friction" "intelligence" and so forth as simple existential propositions.

At lower levels of abstraction the detail is not ignored. It then becomes invalid to talk about "wetness", "friction", "intelligence" and so forth as simple existential propositions, one must talk about "fluids", "mechanics", "decisions" and so forth as simpler existential propositions upon which the higher abstraction compound existential propositions are constructed.

So it is perfectly valid to say "intelligence" does not exist if one is to talk about the "fundamentals" of existence - the lowest level abstraction. At that point "intelligence" is a proposition about more fundamental existants.

So whilst, at a level, what Apathia says about "it wrote itself," seems a ludicrous thing it does, at an another level, ring true. Namely she, I you and everyone else had little choice but to receive, process and transform the information presented to us through our experiences in a manner we describe as "intelligent".

 

[mijopaalmc]

cyborg-

So would the abstraction scheme that you are applying to biological evolution and technological development also efface the differences between Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids if you applied it to fluids?

 

[articulett]

Yes. What we call intelligence and intent is on par with what the spider does when it builds a web... we are programmed to interact with our environment via our genes-- we assimilate, recombine, and copy information. We use products... we purchase products... we earn money... we are programmed to make our environment take care of us...and in doing so, we can't help but be the part on information evolving information systems... whether it's the words we say, the place we live, the products we buy, the products we don't by, or the stuff we produce to earn an income--we are the replicators and honers of information that has been assimilated so far-- whether it's math, language, a blueprint, or a computer. We are born into an evolving environment and we play a role in the evolution of the information in that environment both in genes and "ideas" and via the products we use, the memes we spread, the knowledge we share,--then we die... but everything that evolved through us can live on. Future generations will inherit a "more evolved" version of our ideas, learning, technology, science, environment-- for better or for worse... the history of the world that might appear in some future textbooks is growing exponentially because as people grow... so does the information, event, discoveries, and sharing of information. This forum evolves... this thread evolves... once you have a replication and selection system in place there is nowhere to go but forward and branching off and specializing...or dying out...tapering off... There is just no backwards to information. Not in genomes... not in technology... not in language... not in science....

Human information gets copied and moves through time or it does not... DNA gets copied and moves through time or it does not... technological design is a continuum in regards to intelligence and intent.... so is agriculture and selective breeding... so are the webs spiders build or the dances bees do... you can take intelligence and intent out of the equation and you will understand that it's all about INFORMATION that is good at getting itself copied into the future via coding for something that is preferentially selected by the environment it finds itself in.

Airplane designs that always produce airplanes that fly are copied preferentially-- and from those models new designs emerge and differentiate based on those that end up being copied the most... for whatever reasons--government contract, cheapness, safety, use, efficiency, cost-revenue ration, military usage, etc. And all of it comes from what came right before-- there are no great leaps... just the next step... the same for genomes over time. Those credited with inventing something new really just reassembled information that we already had and tweaked it in a way that made it more useful or replicable or desirable to it's human replicators. Nobody is building anything from the scratch. The 747 could not have been built 100 years ago although all the atoms were available for making one. Humans could not exist until apes did. Our genomes show us how the information has been amassing over time. When you look at how the information evolved for whatever complex item you see, you understand that as complex and stellar as it might be... it is truly the product of a lot of "designers" amassing data over time and moving forward at barely noticeable increments along the way. It's through snapshots in time that we can "see" the results of evolution, but what is really evolving is the information that makes the things we see.

Technology as an analogy is easy to intuit... the time span is so sped up... whereas, evolution takes eons for barely noticeable changes. Those who understand Southwinds analogy, have a good basis for understanding evolution...things evolve because they can.

 

[jimbob]

Quote:

Many people have a naive understanding of what engineering involves,

Yes they do.

and attempting to fix parts of designs that fail

And this attempt occurs how?

This is not how evolution works, where changes happen, and if they confer a benefit, there will be a selective pressure in favour of these changes.

How exactly do you think engineering practices come to be?

Analysis is used a lot in engineering, but even if someone saw that some part of a design failed, and just tinkered with that part which failed without understanding, then this is unlike evolution.

In Darwinian evolution there is random change regardless of the "degree of success" of the parent organism. If someone only tweaks the part that isn't working, then the source of variation within the system is not akin to that in biological evolution. It is more akin to Lysenko's ideas.

There is an important difference between Darwinism and Lysenkoism.

'I don't like this old lady at all--at all,' said Slow-and-Solid Tortoise. 'Even Painted Jaguar can't forget those directions. It's a great pity that you can't swim, Stickly-Prickly.'

'Don't talk to me,' said Stickly-Prickly. 'Just think how much better it would be if you could curl up. This is a mess! Listen to Painted Jaguar.'

'You'll make a fine swimmer yet,' said Slow-and-Solid. 'Now, if you can unlace my back-plates a little, I'll see what I can do towards curling up. It may be useful.'

Stickly-Prickly helped to unlace Tortoise's back-plates, so that by twisting and straining Slow-and-Solid actually managed to curl up a tiddy wee bit.

So Painted Jaguar did as he was told, especially about leaving them alone; but the curious thing is that from that day to this, O Best Beloved, no one on the banks of the turbid Amazon has ever called Stickly-Prickly and Slow-Solid anything except Armadillo. There are Hedgehogs and Tortoises in other places, of course (there are some in my garden); but the real old and clever kind, with their scales lying lippety-lappety one over the other, like pine-cone scales, that lived on the banks of the turbid Amazon in the High and Far-Off Days, are always called Armadillos, because they were so clever.

In saying that the source of the variation is unimportant, the above story is actually a description of evolution, even if inaccurate about how an armadillo came to be.

The source of variation is important.

 

[Belz...]

You mean like this:


Note the intelligent intervention:

Of course. The analogy happens to be driven by intelligence. But of course, you still don't understand it, so why should I bother ?

 

[amb]

What, pray tell, Great Sage, is existence?

A one in a million group of coincidences?
There's billions of possible existences in the cosmos, but only one of us.

Pardon my butting in. I couldn't resist.

 

[cyborg]

Analysis is used a lot in engineering,

And how exactly do you think this came to be?

but even if someone saw that some part of a design failed, and just tinkered with that part which failed without understanding, then this is unlike evolution.

A is not B. So sayeth jimbob.

In Darwinian evolution there is random change regardless of the "degree of success" of the parent organism. If someone only tweaks the part that isn't working, then the source of variation within the system is not akin to that in biological evolution.

jimbob you must live a upotia of engineering development for which I am jealous.

The source of variation is important.

Only if you insist humans are agents of artificiality.