3 ms·

Intelligence != consciousness

• southernplaces7 2y ago
  Agreed on this to a certain extent. Right here on earth in the present day and without taking into account innovative technological advances in AI, we have examples of highly sophisticated intelligence (at least in a functional way) belonging to things that have little or no known consciousness. First example, large hive insect nests, such as those of termites and certain ants. Their internal construction is extremely complex and often built in useful (to them) ways that would challenge even the abilities of smart human engineers trying to do the same with similar tools (sharp digging instruments, organic cementing liquids, raw scavenged building materials and nothing else) Yet any individual termite in a nest of millions shows only, maybe, the most minuscule and debatable signs of consciousness. They instead act like biological, physical pieces of an algorithmic process. Second, obvious example, evolution itself: Here we have a process that produces organic, biological systems of such complexity and self direction that we with all our cognition are barely capable of grasping them robustly let alone emulating any major part of them, yet it's entirely mindless. Sure, it has billions of years to do its thing through the imperatives of brute survival mechanisms, but it's still incredible how on a macro scale none of it involves the least bit of known cognition.