From: ChuckKuecker (ckuecker@mcs.net)
Date: Mon May 04 1998 - 09:18:02 MDT
At 23:37 5/3/98 -0700, you wrote:
>> >highly intelligent entities may completely lack sentience.
>
>
>I've been asking this question for years on this list but have never received
>an answer, if what you say is true what's the point of sentience?
>Intelligence has survival value, but if the two are unrelated why would
>random mutation and natural selection bother to make anything sentient?
>It seems to me it would be like a fifth wheel, and yet I know for a fact that
>evolution did bother to make at least one thing conscious.
>
How can intelligence have any survival value if it can not sense and
interpret it's environment? A super intelligent entity that can't tell its'
been eaten by a mouse is not much good..
Sentience and intelligence must work together. All animals are sentient, but
there are great differences in intellighence.
I have a cat sleeping on my monitor as I type. She is definitely sentient,
and intelligent, but I can easily outsmart her in many ways. She exhibits
conciousness of herself and other beings. Abstract thought, though - now
there's a thorny thing to define and test for..
We need better definitions here..
Chuck Kuecker
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