(July 29, 2019 at 3:48 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:(July 29, 2019 at 3:07 pm)Tom Fearnley Wrote: Anomalocaris: What it seems to mean is "nothing" or if we're being charitable "non-matter" like memory, energy, thoughts. Either way immaterial cannot be intelligent. "Nothing intelligence" or "non-matter intelligence" is a logical contradiction. To produce the non-matter thoughts, dreams etc you would need material neurons and if immaterial means nothing then we are in trouble, because how can intelligence come from nothing?
comet: If we're taking material to mean matter then things are material, no?
Again, what is "matter"? Are all particles "matter"? Are virtual particles matter?
For sake of argument, let's material is a subset of what exists. There are thing we know to exist but which we would not call matter. Since all we know to exist are particles, let's say some of those particles are by our definition not matter. Otherwise intelligence based on immaterial would be excluded not by reason or logic, but by definition. Argument by definition is futile.
Neuron is a thing which we know could facilitate the emergence of intelligence. However, we are not particularly good yet at predicting what emergent properties are possible in large system over long time horizons, it seem premature to exclude the possibility that intelligence like behavior can emerge from systems of particles and virtual particles that bear little resemblance or analogy to neurons.
We don't see how it can, at least we don't think it easily can. But given very large systems and very long time spans, what doesn't happen easily still can't be excluded. So where does that leave us?
To say it definitely can and we may bet on it, that would be wrong. But to say it is absolutely impossible would also be wrong.
describe the system we are in to the best of our ability. What word or notion describes the system we are immediately surrounded by?
List a few ideas and put them side by side to see what ones are more valid. This validity scale would not be absolute. The scale would have to be relative. That being, what ones are more/less valid than others. not that there is even a single answer.
I stay with in earth/sun system. its simple and empirical.
Words or notions that offer an explanation, make repeatable predictions, and have a mechanism are more valid than ones that don't ... period. it doesn't matter how we feel about the word god or the universe.
anti-logical Fallacies of Ambiguity