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Is the planet conscious but on a time scale that we are out-of-touch with? Plants are just an order of magnitude quicker to react but still much slower than nee

Is the planet conscious but on a time scale that we are out-of-touch with? Plants are just an order of magnitude quicker to react but still much slower than needed to make us care. The truth is, we associate speed with intelligence, it's natural for us. We even have the word "slow" to mean stupid. It's possible we will eventually have a super intelligence able to craftily manipulate matter at the highest ability -- but will still be as slow as a turtle. If it builds shields and preventative measures to compensate for its' slowness, I think we'd consider it a superintelligent species -- slow or not.

perl4ever 9y ago
Regarding speed and intelligence, I found an interesting article (while searching for something else): It's titled "Smart People Really Do Think Faster" and says the speed of nerve impulses in the brain's white matter correlates to intelligence. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102169531 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102169...
whatshisface 9y ago
I think we might just have to, out of philosophical desperation, define "murder" as a set containing A. the irreversible termination of any economically useful self-directing information processor and B. acts that desensitize our inborn resistance to doing A. The first covers not killing other healthy adults/sentient robots, and the second covers not abusing animals or euthanizing anybody. As far as my gut says that's all you really need out of an ethical system, right? If I had to assign an evolutionary purpose to why we hate animal abuse so much, it would probably be that whenever the "don't torture squirrels" circuit fails homicide is not far behind.
- deleted 9y ago
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dzuc 9y ago
http://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/USAconscious.htm http://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/USAconscious.htm
gowld 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ent

perl4ever 9y ago

Regarding speed and intelligence, I found an interesting article (while searching for something else): It's titled "Smart People Really Do Think Faster" and says the speed of nerve impulses in the brain's white matter correlates to intelligence. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102169531 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102169...

whatshisface 9y ago

I think we might just have to, out of philosophical desperation, define "murder" as a set containing A. the irreversible termination of any economically useful self-directing information processor and B. acts that desensitize our inborn resistance to doing A. The first covers not killing other healthy adults/sentient robots, and the second covers not abusing animals or euthanizing anybody. As far as my gut says that's all you really need out of an ethical system, right? If I had to assign an evolutionary purpose to why we hate animal abuse so much, it would probably be that whenever the "don't torture squirrels" circuit fails homicide is not far behind.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

dzuc 9y ago

http://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/USAconscious.htm http://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/USAconscious.htm

gowld 9y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ent