At 01:03 PM 10/01/2000, you wrote:
> >Chris
> >If what is described in the article is considered intelligence, then the
> >average computer program is definitely intelligent. I am personally willing
> >to accept such a concept of intelligence-as-computation, but will point out
> >that it is perfectly "materialistic" in that it doesn't require anything
> >that mindless matter can't do.
>
>Bertvan:
>The question is whether intelligence is also capable of
>creativity/spontaneity/free will.
Chris
*Is* this the question? I saw no mention of it at all in the article. How
is it necessary that slime mold be capable of "creativity/spontaneity/free
will? What slime mold needs is the ability to respond to stimuli in ways
that enable it to survive and reproduce. Bunching up around the food does
not require creativity, free will, or spontaneity. It requires suitable
mechanically computational response to stimuli.
>If so, such qualities can be neither
>measured nor predicted.
Chris
Of course, they *are* measured, routinely. Perhaps you mean that *you*
don't know how to measure or predict them, don't you? Your arguments from
personal ignorance tell us a lot more about you than they do about science,
measurement, or prediction.
Bertvan
>I gather that materialists would claim that since
>they can't be measured, they don't exist.
Chris
Or, they might claim, as I do, that they *can* be measured.
Bertvan
>Or at least, that they can have no
>effect upon the world of molecules and physical forces.
Chris
Or, that you are positing a false alternative. Materialistic, deterministic
processes can be as creative, spontaneous, and exhibit as much "free will"
as you could care to have.
Bertvan
>That is a legitimate
>view, but the opposite view is equally legitimate. The belief that
>creativity/spontaneity/free will do exist and can have an effect upon the
>world of molecules and physical forces.
Chris
Of course, they do exist and do have effects, because they are functions of
certain structures of matter (as far as we can tell; and nothing
non-material is needed to explain them). Again, you are positing a false
alternative: That either materialism is true and there is no
spontaneity/creativity/free will, or there is spontaneity/creativity/free
will and materialism is false. There is a third alternative: That
deterministic materialism is true *and* that deterministic structures and
processes can exhibit spontaneity/creativity/free will. You will have
trouble grasping this as long as you arbitrarily *define*
spontaneity/creativity/free will
in such a way as to be incompatible with materialism and determinism.
Bertvan
>If they exist they are a part of
>reality, they could be a part of science.
Chris
They *are* part of the domain of science. I wonder how you have prevented
yourself from finding this out all these years.
Bertvan
>If science claims to be unable to
>deal with "unmeasureables", science should refrain from attempting to answer
>questions about nature, except for simple descriptions of measurable,
>observable phenomena.
Chris
Since everything is measurable, what would this leave science to refrain
from attempting to answer questions about?
>How nature acquired its complexity would be a one
>question upon which science should remain silent -- if it insists upon
>ignoring phonomina that most people (except for materialists) take for
>granted.
Chris
Hmmmm. You are saying that Nature *acquired* its complexity? What makes you
think Nature wasn't *always" just as complex as it is today?. This is
another burden of proof for you, but it's one that you take on when you
make dogmatic claims. Perhaps you mean something like, how *some* of Nature
acquired *its* complexity? Or how living things acquired their complexity?
Of course, since living things are not all there is in Nature, this is
quite different from the question you posed.
And, of course, science doesn't ignore the phenomena you mentioned; it
merely takes a less pathetically superstitious view of them than you and
most people do. Further, studying complexity is *obviously* a suitable
activity for science, whether it ignores your views of free will,
spontaneity, and creativity or not. What if complexity is not particularly
connected with free-will, creativity, spontaneity?
But, in any case, as mentioned above, and in *several* past posts, science
does *not* ignore these topics. In fact, research in complexity provides
indications as to how deterministic systems can be spontaneous and creative
and exhibit a kind of free will.
And, why oh why, if you are such an advocate of these things, do your posts
nearly all seem to have been written by a poorly-programmed robot? Where
are *your* spontaneity, creativity, and free will? You repeat the same
claims over and over, mechanically. You consistently refrain from providing
real evidence and argumentation to support them. You do not appear to have
learned much of anything with respect to any of these topics, or the main
topic of this list, in nearly two years, etc. And, when you *do* provide
some kind of argumentation, it is like your last sentence above: Logically
incoherent, lacking in logical connection between the antecedent and the
consequent. You *repeat* endlessly not only the same basic claims, but the
same crazily illogical pseudo-inferences, even after they have been soundly
refuted several times and in several different ways. And, you routinely
respond not to what a person *actually* says, but to a few "cue" words that
trigger off automatic responses in you that typically have little to do
with what the person was actually talking about. These are all signs of a
*lack* of creativity, a lack of free-will, a lack of spontaneity.
Could it be that they are so important to you because you experience so
*little* of them and thus feel deprived, while we "materialists" are
actually *being* spontaneous, creative, and acting freely? You seem
*programmed* to mechanically and endlessly say, "Free will! Creativity!
Spontaneity!" over and over again, without meaningful reference to facts or
context. We could easily write a computer program that would exhibit nearly
as much "Free-will, spontaneity, and creativity" as you do. Your position
would be more plausible if you would start behaving as if *you* had free
will, spontaneity, and creativity.
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