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And people tell me the universe is not intelligent. I think what scares us is that intelligence, like _real_ intelligence, is prior to thought and so it seems a
by AltruisticGapHN 3y ago
And people tell me the universe is not intelligent. I think what scares us is that intelligence, like _real_ intelligence, is prior to thought and so it seems almost alien and incomprehensible to us. Yet these creatures clearly know what they are doing at some level. Just as we know what we are doing with our lungs, heart, nervous system etc. that evolved over thousands of years, but we don't know it in thought - so it eludes us as something external.
- jibal 3y agoThe universe indeed is not intelligent. Nor do these creatures know what they are doing. Nor did evolution know what it was doing when it created them -- evolution is not an agent or even an entity, its a description of a natural process of highly constrained brute force trial and error. With a proper scientific and biological education these things are neither alien nor incomprehensible and the numerous conceptual errors above can be avoided.
- jibal 3y agoP.S. Both of the responses include additional conceptual errors (or worse: bad faith). e.g. one can always find someone with credentials (often irrelevant, as here) on YouTube in support of one's beliefs. And as for "If you treat it as if it's is you get the exact same result though" -- this simply isn't true -- not yet, anyway. And if it ever is true, one would need extreme justification to claim the AI isn't conscious. In any case, this has nothing to do with whether the universe is intelligent--after all, we already know that it contains intelligent creatures (surely some humans are).
- hackeraccount 3y agoThis reminds me of an AI that passes the Turing test. Of course it's not conscious. If you treat it as if it's is you get the exact same result though. At some point the similarities between the metaphor "the Universe is intelligent" and the actual Universe are so small that there are effectively no conceptual errors.
- AltruisticGapHN 3y agoWell some very, very smart people would seem to disagree. Cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman says fundamental physics is consciousness, spacetime is doomed and everything we know about physics is wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVH8WhgBXCk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVH8WhgBXCk You're part of the old guard :)
- Shorel 3y agoThe universe is intelligent because we are part of the universe. And we are intelligent, given our current definition of intelligence. Otherwise, a rock will not be intelligent by itself. Or a mountain. Or a star.
- AltruisticGapHN 3y ago"Where there are rocks... watchout!" - Alan Watts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZbThJg6ehU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZbThJg6ehU > Otherwise, a rock will not be intelligent by itself. Or a mountain. Or a star. Yes that is panpsychism. Otherwise you totally miss my point. edit: a little less sarcastic perhaps, point being is that if consciousness is fundamental (which it increasingly seems to be the case according to most recent physics) - then the universe indeed KNOWS what it is doing.