From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Mon Jul 15 2002 - 08:03:49 MDT
Eli wrote (responding to me):
> > > 2) Perhaps there is some kind of trans-human force in the
> universe that
> > > pushes toward the creation of greater intelligence, and
> > humanity itself is
> > > just a manifestation of this (this is a "self-organizational"
> > rather than
> > > strictly "evolutionary" answer)
> >
> > Do you have support for this hypothesis of which I am unaware? Because
> > with the support I currently see, I wouldn't have rated this as being
> > worth a mention in your reply. (Unfortunately the human mind seems
> > designed to accept wishful thinking as "support" - but it's not.)
>
> This is not the sort of hypothesis for which one can list a few
> items of individually convincing evidence.
>
> For a good depiction of this point of view, see Eric Jantsch's
> book, "The Self-Organizing Universe." It's not that current, but
> the basic ideas are still just as valid as ever, in my view.
Essentially, as Jantsch presents it, it is an abductive hypothesis: If you
assume it, the universe and the Earth make a lot more sense.
It is not an hypothesis that is deductively pointed to by a series of
empirical observations.
This kind of abductive hypothesis based on a broad base of information is
pretty close to what I always call "intuition", I suppose...
-- ben g
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