Bodvar Skutvik (skutvik@online.no)
Tue, 14 Oct 1997 05:23:11 +0100
Dear Lila Squad!
I really admire you young(er) folks for your ability to respond - on
the spur of the moment seemingly - to new twists and turns of a
thread. It is far too fast for me, so let me pull seniority (next to
Platt Holden) and give a Bo style summary of what we are talking
about - mostly in the Artificial Intelligence debate.
First. What is stake here is the same thing that haunted our
mind-out-of-body-or society discussion, and until settled it will go
on haunting us, so the "villain" must be brought out in the open.
I am not quite clear what Lars Marius' position is, but at least he
wasn't willing to grant intelligence to a piece of silicon, he
possibly thinks that means "consciousness", but I have a feeling that
he is (re)considering things!
Gene delivered a response to Magnus which is compatible with my own
view, when he pointed out that Intellect does not take a detour out
to any imaginary society and then back into our brains. Right, we
human beings ARE all levels (even if only one can be in focus at a
time), not just the mind/body of the SOM, and that makes the whole
difference.
Magnus brought up the interesting "Gedankeneksperiment" if he would
retain his intellect after being left in a world devoid of human
life. Was it Hugo or Platt who once spoke about the Robinson Crusoe
myth: the lone but still reasonable mind. RC, however
knew that civilization lay behind the horizon even if he was marooned
. A Magnus Berg aware of his loneliness would soon loose his
mind (literally), or he would join an animal society. Remember the
wolf-boy incident?
Diana (rightly) believes that an AI can be found out by confronting
it with a question it isn't programmed for. But ask a cat or a dog
to do a task they aren't programmed for and their "illusion" will
also fall apart. Yes I would say that so will Diana's if confronted
with a unexpected situation. At least I can become quite moronic if I
haven't prepared myself.
What it boils down to is that you (all?) want an Artificial
Intelligence to match the human INTELLECT, but this cannot be
achieved because the latter builds on human Society. AI can only
match (or simulate) INTELLIGENCES, and possibly only certain aspects
of them. "Intelligence" in my vocabulary is what make organisms
perform in their natural environments, so it varies from
amoeba to human beings.
Intelligence - or neural complexity - was the "weak spot" where
the dynamic force found foothold to step up another quality rung
from the Social level, but please note. The stepping stone for Life,
- the carbon atom - is not alive, the single individual isn't
society: similarly; BRAIN IS NOT INTELLECT.
Each level's main task is to free itself from its parent level, and
it is not different with Intellect: it desperately wants to be
independent and won't hear about any Social heritage. It is a
liberation all right, but in the same symbiotic way as the lower
levels. As little as there can be a Society without Life or
Life without Matter, there can be an Intellect without Society.
But there is a point her I must make. We have all agreed that there
is a certain fuzziness between the various levels, it is no less
so on the Society/Intellect border. I have a feeling that parts of
what we deem Social is really Culture. The Static Social Value
manifests as everything that transcends the individual, but when we
reach the Nation or State level, the cultural influence is
overwhelming. Gene and Diana exchanged a few sighs over how difficult
it is to convey the values of different "societies", but really what
distinguishes one country from another is mainly culture
(according to Pirsig culture is Intellect's manifestation). Culture
resembles Society, but its scope is much wider. Society doesn't
mind so much what you "think" as long as you do your
communal duty, but Culture is preoccupied with correct ideas (re. the
"insanity" part of LILA), and as intellectual ideas are extremely
strong and influential we confront problems. But this is
another huge thread of its own.
Bo
PS. Our exchange is a lot of pearls before swine (I am just as
much of a "swine"). Long, fine entries keep popping up and
are not responded to fully, or just ignored (for instance Maggie
Hettinger's account of Julian Jaynes' book. I know that Pirsig was
influenced by it.) It grieves me, but rest assured that they are read
and please go on delivering them. At least they reside in my (mental
and metal) harddisk, and will be dealt with when the yearbook of the
Lila Squad is to be written (Remember the famous "Proceedings of the
Society for Psychical Research"! ;-)).
Finally: Magnus, please take a little time before throwing yourself
at the keyboard. I appreciate your responeses very much, but would
like them even more if you - once in a while - delivered a complete
line of thought :-)
-- post message - mailto:skwok@spark.net.hk unsubscribe/queries - mailto:diana@asiantravel.com homepage - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/4670
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