Re: The Ultimate Connection Machine.

From: Mike & Donna Deering (deering9@mchsi.com)
Date: Thu May 02 2002 - 11:48:20 MDT


Ben says:
>To say "the Gaia conscious being is purposefully working toward the
>Singularity" may be to export a lot of the human concept of
>"purposefulness" to a radically non-human domain in a not very appropriate

It isn't much of a stretch to attribute "purposefulness" to an intelligent
conscious being. The question is whether it is conscious and intelligent.

Ben mentions his intuition that it is slow and concerned with only
environmental maintenance. My intuition is that environmental concerns are
analogous to maintaining homeostasis of blood pressure and temperature in
our bodies. And if you were the size of a bacterium this is what you would
see as our behavior, missing the fact that we are piloting a plane from
Boise to Denver. We have a conception problem because of scale and as Ben
says, the fact that it is so different. To assume a low slow level of
intelligence because we can't see purposeful behavior while discounting
possible evidence (drive to Singularity) could be one conclusion jumped too
far.



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