From: John K Clark (johnkclark@fastmail.fm)
Date: Fri Mar 06 2009 - 08:47:54 MST
On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 "Charles Hixson"
<charleshixsn@earthlink.net> said:
> I consider an expert system to be intelligent
> (in a narrow way), but not conscious.
I’ll bet you don’t think that program is very conscious because it’s not
very intelligent, but I don’t understand why everybody assumes that
coming up with intelligence is easy but consciousness is hard. The parts
of the brain that produce emotion (and presumably you think emotion has
something to do with consciousness) are hundreds of millions of years
old, but the parts of the brain that produce the sort of intelligence we
are so proud of are only about one million years old.
So if evolution found it easier to come up with consciousness than
intelligence I don't see why we would find the opposite to be true; you
could make a stronger case saying a computer may be conscious
someday but it will never be intelligent; although I think it will be
both.
> I don't have an explicit, acceptable, and usable
> definition of either intelligence or consciousness.
That’s OK, except for pure mathematics precise definitions are of little
use when you have something far more important, examples. Most people
can lead a full rich rewarding life having never looked at a dictionary
since their teacher made them do so when they were twelve; and after
all, examples are where lexographers got the information to write their
book.
John K Clark
-- John K Clark johnkclark@fastmail.fm -- http://www.fastmail.fm - The professional email service
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