RE: Order vs. Randomness
January 31, 2014 at 8:32 pm
(This post was last modified: January 31, 2014 at 8:36 pm by Mudhammam.)
(January 31, 2014 at 2:14 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:(January 30, 2014 at 8:45 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: One further thought came to mind. When I think of intelligence I think it includes something along the lines of intentions, goals. Perhaps this is somewhat how we get from intelligence to non-intelligence, roughly traversing our lineage.
Raayan's goal to be a Noble prize winner - a genuine goal, in the upmost sense of the word
A chimp's attempt to get the banana off the tree - a genuine goal, but only "as-if" in comparison to Raayan's goal
A shark's pursuit of a scuba diver - not quite a goal, in the sense of the first two, maybe more like pseudo-goal
An ant colony building a hill, or a plant attracting an insect - an "as-if" pseudo-goal?
A microbe reproducing - an "as-if it is as-if" a pseudo-goal?
Eventually, we get far down enough, we reach NO GOAL. No guidance. No intention. No intelligence.
Even a very small amount of intentionality is something. There is no scale at which something magically disappears. Either it goes all the way down or it never comes up. There are no as-ifs.
Of course it doesn't magically disappear. It's called evolution by natural selection! A function can evolve into a new function. An UNINTENDED consequence of that new function may come into existence for the first time. This is, I believe, the case with purpose and intentionality. Unless you can produce evidence otherwise. Do you think euglena are conscious? That's retarded.