Is the Universe alive and intelligent?

[El_Machinae]

We taught rocks to fly when we started building automated drones.

 

[Kyriakos]

We taught rocks to fly when we started building automated drones.

if <above>= true, then alsotrue= Even before that we had taught rocks to fly when using slingers

 

[El_Machinae]

The point, of course, is that teaching rocks to swim isn't outrageous. It's a function of pespective. By all understanding a drone is made up of rock and it can fly in ways that a slung bullet cannot.

And, we've turned skin cells into conscious entities using mouse wombs, water, and mouse chow. The creation of consciousness isn't magic, we just don't understand it yet.

 

[Kyriakos]

^It is one thing to 'create' consciousness, and obviously hugely another to take something already inherently being able to form/show consciousness, and alter it. Chances are the latter will again have- under some circumstances- a consciousness, but you would not have created it, not anymore than a kid moving a chair from his room to the next one has created the chair

 

[El_Machinae]

^It is one thing to 'create' consciousness, and obviously hugely another to take something already inherently being able to form/show consciousness, and alter it. Chances are the latter will again have- under some circumstances- a consciousness, but you would not have created it, not anymore than a kid moving a chair from his room to the next one has created the chair

Well, granted, you need to alter something with the 'potential' to become conscious in order to create a conscious being. I mean, we changed the mouse chow into a conscious form by altering it.

I know of no theory of consciousness that doesn't require the altering of matter in order to actualize the consciousness. Heck, my own consciousness requires an ongoing alteration of carbohydrates and oxygen into CO2 and water, merely to maintain.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, granted, you need to alter something with the 'potential' to become conscious in order to create a conscious being. I mean, we changed the mouse chow into a conscious form by altering it.

I know of no theory of consciousness that doesn't require the altering of matter in order to actualize the consciousness. Heck, my own consciousness requires an ongoing alteration of carbohydrates and oxygen into CO2 and water, merely to maintain.

So you are also of the view that the only way to get 'intelligent' (or conscious, etc) AI would be by forming a hybrid of machine with some dna? Since i would agree that without having something there which is much more than a conscious human creation, we won't have anything conscious in a computer-hybrid either.

But i still don't see how fussing a computer with some dna is going to either produce a result worthy of being studied, a result one can to some general degree theorise about before it materialises, OR an end-result that is anything near a conscious computer, for it seems a lot more likely it would be a dna-organism which would have little chance of working with the plight brought to it and won't (of course) begin using the computer parts to do stuff.

I think sci-fi has led many people to think that an intelligent AI will be furious or inquisitive about humans. Personally i think a dna-machine hybrid will be utterly oblivious of us. Even if it can 'think', it will be far too busy collapsing due to the state it is in, cause you don't stick an electrode to a mutilated frog and then expect the flog to take advantage of the electricity it experiences

 

[El_Machinae]

So you are also of the view that the only way to get 'intelligent' (or conscious, etc) AI would be by forming a hybrid of machine with some dna?

That's not what I am saying. I see no reason to assume that. DNA is the instruction set for turning mouse chow into a conscious entity. We'll need a system for turning transistors into consciousness, but I see no specific need to include either DNA (specifically) or mouse chow into the melange.

 

[Kyriakos]

^I just don't agree we can turn something not inherently (biologically in this case) set to potentially form consciousness, into something with a consciousness. Regardless of what type and specifics that consciousness would have.

 

[El_Machinae]

No worries. That type of research is barely funded. We'll keep chipping away, and the majority of computer science and neuroscience is focused on other things.

I don't see what's magical about mouse chow, or CHNOPS.

 

[Kyriakos]

Not magical, obviously, but while you can try to build a human part out of cells made using dna in a lab, you won't be able to build a golem out of stone, or any other thing which was not a biological organism already.

Besides, afaik even stone golems had no conscience. They were dumb holyletter-lead freaks

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, you're ascribing some fundamental property to CHNOPS that allows it to create consciousness. I see no reason to.

I mean, upthread it was mentioned 'it seems that only water to expand as it freezes', so there might be something unique to CHNOPS. Once we have a viable theory of consciousness, it'll be more clear

 

[Terxpahseyton]

2 for one really. 'Consiousness is special' could of course be considered special pleading.

Okay if you just want to keep hiding behind naming logical fallacies instead of actually making an argument (for instance by explaining why a given fallacy was valid) we have nothing more to say to each other. I am not in the mood of doing all the work for your smug highness.

Well ... for you, I guess. El_M seems to be disputing it. (I think?)

Ah sorry I didn't bother to read his further exchange because we agreed on this anyway. I guess it hinges on how we define the word property.