Danpech
Member
Member # 163
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posted 16. June 2002 16:41
(In case it matters to the reader of this post: I have read this entire thread.)(Oops, make that a negative. Somehow, I did not see that there are multiple pages)[/b]
hi complex,
I think I may know what you are getting at. To start with, how do you yourself know that you are dealing with intelligent agents in this thread (me, the moderator, and other "participants")? Why do you not assume that we are non-intelligent? Is it valid to assume, or even suppose, that you are the only intelligent agent writing in this thread? You somehow reason that we are intelligent, but, as to what that reasoning is, only you can determine for yourself. In another thread, the idea of eliminating all chance hypotheses was offered, and this idea may bear on how you yourself can find a definition of intelligence.
What I myself suppose is the definition of an intelligent being is just what you have offered: the "I". The sense of something (as opposed to, say, when you are in deep sleep). IMO, this "I" cannot itself be defined mechanically---or, shall I say "scientifically". I do not beleive that it can defined functionally.
However, I do believe that there are functions that are not, and cannot be, the result of mechanical law and chance---that there are functions which can only be the result of intelligence. Suppose this is the case. This kind of function would not constitute a definition of intelligence, but would merely be the sign of intelligence.
This is, in fact, how it seems to me that I myself simply do not assume that, say, the "moderator" is non-intelligent: 1, I grant that I myself am intelligent and, based upon this, I know what intelligence can do. 2, I know something of what my own, personal direct experience shows to me what seems to me that law+chance cannot do. From these, I infer intelligence on the part of objects other than myself. Under normal conditions, I do not bother with chance hypotheses to the contrary.
But, what if we suppose a world in which we experience/note almost nothing of the products of law+chance? Will we then assume intelligence on the part of, say, a cloud, when we are finally let out into the natural outdoors?
[ 16 June 2002, 16:52: Message edited by: Danpech ]
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