Sentience

From: Yak Wax (yakwax@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed May 06 1998 - 12:51:11 MDT


Chuck Kuecker wrote:
> However, I have to question whether low
> intelligence indicates a 'chaotic' view. I
> would expect the lower intelligence would
> entail a simpler view of the world. A child
> begins with a simple view of things around
> him, and adds complexity as he grows and
> learns. A less intelligent person does not
> learn as quickly, and would be less
> sophisticated in his views.

But doesn't a limited ability to handle complex situations lead to a
chaotic view? A higher intelligence can see the cause and effect of
many things simultaneously. A lesser intelligence that is unable to
see cause and effect sees randomness and probability.

Now read this quote from Hans Moravec (Simulation, Consciousness,
Existence - Telepolis 96):

---
"Hartle and Gell-Mann note that if we were to try to observe and
remember events at the finest possible detail - around 10^-30
centimeters, far smaller than anything reachable today - the
interference of all possible worlds would present a seething chaos
with no permanent structures, no quiet place to store memories,
effectively no consistent time. At a coarser viewing scale - 10^-15
centimeters, the submicroscopic world touched by today's high-energy
physics - much of the chaos goes unobserved, and multiple worlds merge
together, canceling the wildest possibilities, leaving those where
particles can exhibit a consistent existence and motion, if still
jaggedly unpredictable, through a vacuum that boils with ephemeral
virtual energy. Everyday objects have the smooth, predictable
trajectories of common sense only because our dim senses are coarser
still, registering nothing finer than 10^-5 centimeters. At scales
larger than the everyday (or the Hartle Gell-Mann analysis), the
events we consider interesting are blurred to invisibility, and the
universe is increasingly boring and predictable. At the largest
possible scale, the universe's matter is canceled by the negative
energy in its gravitational fields (which strengthen while releasing
energy, as matter falls together), and in sum there is nothing at all.
The odd thing about the Gell-Mann Hartle spectrum is that it is not
some external knob that controls the interaction intensity, but
varying interpretations of a single underlying reality made by
observers who are part of the interpretation."
---
So the predictability of the world is related to how you consciously
observe it.  I'm not exactly the authroity on the Gell-Mann Hartle
Spectrum so don't take anything I say at face value.  But someone
who's "more conscious" (is seeing things on larger scale i.e. more
complexity) would seem more intelligent than someone who is
"less-conscious."  So it could be that intelligence and consciousness
is the same thing.
Anyone care to correct me?
--Wax
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