From: Ian Goddard (Ian@Goddard.net)
Date: Thu Jan 21 1999 - 10:52:29 MST
At 02:36 AM 1/21/99 -0500, I wrote:
>
> IAN: The initial point was that a collective
> is not an entity as in a "thing," if it's a
> matter of it being a conscious being, that
> ventures into the deep. Life per se tends
> to display consciousness if we correlate
> consciousness with learning. The process
> of evolution is a learning process, but
> exactly who is learning seems to me to
> be the same question "exactly who am I?"
IAN: The key word is "intelligence." I believe
that we can say that the collective "life entity"
DOES display intelligence (a symptom of "mind"),
since evolution is a process of learning, and
artificial-learning systems, such as neutral
networks, are considered to be (more or less)
viable examples of artificial intelligence. So
I believe we can say: learning <=> intelligence.
If so, then we can say that the collective
life-entity has a measurable intelligence.
If we can measure it, then I'd say it exists.
Moreover, the question arises: "What in the
process of the evolution-of-species evolves?"
In short, where does this intelligence of the
life-entity exist, in individuals or the group?
If it exists only in the group, then the group
entity constitutes a viable entity and "mind."
Do individual members of one species suddenly
evolve into a member of a new species? NO! So
the evolution of any one individual member of
species-type B into another non-B species = 0.
Ergo: ONLY THE COLLECTIVE EVOLVES! We've thus
isolated the learning-intelligence of evolu-
tion to the collective life-entity, and in
so doing have measured something major that
is ONLY an attribute of the group-entity.
If we are to contend that the collective is,
has, or does nothing more than each individual
(thus it can just be erased), then we say that
there is no process of evolution, just a lot
of different individuals. Doing that we've
cut ourselves off from real understanding,
and thus the no-collective-entity theory
is false and antithetical to knowledge.
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