X-Message-Number: 8001
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 20:50:11 -0800 (PST)
From: John K Clark <>
Subject: We shall overcome someday

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In  #7994    On Wed, 2 Apr 1997 Wrote:


        >John Clark (#7971) says that genetic drift will soon eradicate any
        
        >trait that doesn't have positive value for survival or proliferation.
        
        >I think one could find many counter-examples [...]  consider the
                >black hair and brown eyes of Asians
              

In the first place the time periods are very different, Asians have had brown 
eyes for only a few thousand years, brains are about half a billion years old. 

In the second place the exclusive brown eye trait has not persisted in the 
species as a whole but only in some populations. 

In the third place, unlike your "self circuit", brown eyes can be observed 
in other people. In a brown eye population blue eyes would probably be 
considered hideous by most, so such a mutant would have great difficulty 
finding a mate. Mate selection can be very important in Evolution. Animals, 
especially females, try to size up a potential mate for fitness, and somebody 
who looks very different from everybody else is often ill. Also, sometimes 
females get it wrong and zero in on the wrong feature in a mate for close 
examination, hence the beautiful but useless tail of a peacock.
              


        >For that matter, there are traits and organs that have survived
                >DESPITE actual mild negative value, such as the vermiform appendix
              

To render an organ inoperative it only takes one mutation, but to eliminate 
it would take many separate mutations. Other people could have a
"self circuit" but yours is the only one that works.
                            


        >It isn't necessarily easier to make something that is more efficient
        
        >--usually the contrary, since usually the first effort in anything
                >is followed by a series of improvements. 


It's true that in absolute terms bad engineering is often easier than good 
engineering, but not if you take into consideration what the engineering in 
trying to accomplish, that is, the problem you want to solve. Building a jet 
engine is harder than building a radial piston prop engine, but if the goal 
is to break the sound barrier then it's much easier to just go ahead and make 
the jet, even though it's difficult, than to try to do it with a prop, 
in fact, to this day nobody has broken the sound barrier with even the best 
prop, much less a radial one. 

If you want to have an intelligent machine the easiest way (I think the only 
way) is to just go ahead and develop consciousness. If not, then why don't we
see any evidence that nature has EVER achieved intelligence with a large,  
inefficient, poorly engineered brain? 
                            


        >we HAVE produced some recognizable degree of "intelligence" in
                >computers, with no recognizable feeling. 
                            

Not surprising, according to you we should never deduce that computers have 
feelings regardless of what they do or say.
                            


        >Also, some primitive creatures display some degree of "intelligence"
                >but with no proven capacity for feeling.
                            


An intelligent creature that does not show pain or fear or aggression or lust?
What creature is that?  
                            

        >he [me] has some psychological need to reject the reasonable         

        >possibility that a "robot" (intelligent but without feeling) might
                >exist. 
                 
If I thought that an intelligent zombie robot was a "reasonable possibility" 
then I would have no choice but to conclude that the same was true for humans. 
You are correct, I do have a psychological need to reject solipsism, even as 
a reasonable possibility.           



        >He [me] seems to equate such a doubt with a kind of racism or meat
                >chauvinism.
                 
I have a dream. I foresee a day when people are judged not by the color of  
their skin or the phase state of their brain, but by the quality of their  
character and the value of their ideas. I have a dream.
         

       >they are selective in their survival criteria with no clear,         
       >rigorous rationale for what they accept and what they reject. 


I survive if my thoughts and emotions survive, the position of my brain,  
the particular atoms that make it up and the fate of my left knee cap is  
irrelevant.      


        >NO MATTER WHAT POSITION YOU TAKE, I CAN PRODUCE A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
                >THAT  DEMONSTRATES (or strongly suggests) THE OPPOSITE. 
                  
You know my views, if you have a thought experiment that demonstrates I'm 
wrong I haven't seen it.                      

                                              John K Clark    

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