The Miracle of Life is still not fully explained and well understood by scientifists and philosophers. And yet life in all its forms and variations is a complex and enduring phenomenon that has changed the whole face of the planet and is thriving.
To define what’s life:
Life is a condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects, i.e. non-life, and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally. A physical characteristic of life is that it feeds on negative entropy. According to physicists such as John Bernal, Erwin Schrödinger, Wigner, and John Avery, life is a member of the class of phenomena which are open or continuous systems able to decrease their internal entropy at the expense of substances or free energy taken in from the environment and subsequently rejected in a degraded form.
But apart from the physicist's definition of life systems based on terms like negative entropy scientist have found that life has the property to self-form and increase its complexity and variations, this has been proved by many experiments and field observations. It seems that life itself is occurring everywhere there are even the basic necessary conditions for it - in deep dark volcanic oceans gazers and maybe even inside radioactive space commets.
And above all, life and specifically we, humans, as representatives of the most sophisticated life form on Earth are bearers of one even more curious and powerful property - Intelligence!
And what is Intelligence:
Intelligence comes from the latin verb "intellegere", which means "to understand". By this rationale, intelligence (as understanding) is arguably different from being "smart" (able to adapt to one's environment), or being "clever" (able to creatively adapt). By the Latin definition, intelligence arguably has to do with a deeper understanding of the relationships of all things around us; and with a capability for metaphysical manipulation of such objects once such understanding is mastered.
According to Ray Kurzweil, one of the most prominent modern visionaries in his article in Edge - THE INTELLIGENT UNIVERSE:
The universe has been set up exquisitely enough to have intelligence. There are intelligent entities like ourselves that can contemplate the universe and develop models about it, which is interesting. Intelligence is, in fact, a powerful force and we can see that its power is going to grow not linearly but exponentially, and will ultimately be powerful enough to change the destiny of the universe.
So isn't Life as bearer of one of the most powerful properties in the Universe - Intelligence, a proof of the Intelligence of the Universe itself
Hah, you are right that scientists rarely doubt that there is "something else smart in the universe besides themselves" Maybe even this is beginning to change nowadays.
Let me just tell you that the guy I quoted, R. Kurzweil is really thinking in advance - he is projecting not just intelligence, but also Artificial Intelligence or AI. The idea is that we would be soon capable of surpassing operating capacity of one human brain and together with some modern scientific branches hopefully will create the first artificial mind. After that why not enhance ourselves and become immortal..
Still these are not my ideas, although I am not the one to object them. Actually the topic here is not about artificial intelligence - the one described by Kurzweil, although he used the term first.
You are asking:
"universe has been set up..." by whom? What is universe? What is the one to set it up? Can we distinguish them and how? Can we distinguish us and how?
I really do not know how to answer most of these questions.. What I am trying to suggest is that:
There is one principle in the Universe and it is based on the intelligence, complexity and evolution of universe, nature and life. And we humans, as intelligent creatures, have the ability to be part of this evolution, create and experience it.
As the one with greatest intelligence on the Planet we even have a mission and a role in this evolving world. Kurzweil actually is thinking intelligence might be our friend, although I am a little doubtful as to what will be the path of Mankind.
Intelligence is power, but yet often a double-edged weapon.
And I think what humankind doesn't know yet is how to use this power the "proper" way, or the Universal, you name it
triers wrote:Let me just tell you that the guy I quoted, R. Kurzweil is really thinking in advance - he is projecting not just intelligence, but also Artificial Intelligence or AI. The idea is that we would be soon capable of surpassing operating capacity of one human brain and together with some modern scientific branches hopefully will create the first artificial mind. After that why not enhance ourselves and become immortal..
That's weird, man! First you are assuming capacity of human brain is limited. As well you consider it the core source of the intelligence we have. And then you are claiming we are mortal not even defining what death is and we should fight it... See, my intention was to put today's dogmas to reconsideration. There are no hard proofs for these theories and really I'm convinced that kind of thinking leads to a dead end .
btw I can't remember who said that "computers are not interesting, they can give only answers but not any questions." Or something like that...
triers wrote:As the one with greatest intelligence on the Planet
triers wrote:Still these are not my ideas, although I am not the one to object them. Actually the topic here is not about artificial intelligence - the one described by Kurzweil, although he used the term first.
I haven't stated that I think he is right in his approach! I just like the term he had already coined, namely:
"The Intelligent Universe"
Otherwise what my point is has little to do now with AI, although if we make an effort we can draw some parallels between artificial and human (or natural) intellect.
Here is what intelligence is:
Intelligence is a property of mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn. There are several ways to define intelligence. In some cases, intelligence may include traits such as: creativity, personality, character, knowledge, or wisdom. However, some psychologists prefer not to include these traits in the definition of intelligence.
and:
..ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought.
as well as:
a very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—"catching on", "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do.
And why do I state that we are first of all capable of intelligence and also supposedly the most advanced being on the planet? It's simply because we are the ones that create the most complex products of intellect - the technology, art and social structure.
Actually now I want to give some examples from 2 movies and maybe you can say what intelligence is if we should redefine it to encompass a larger group of phenomena. 1. The Cube - I hope you've seen it. As far as I remember that movie the cube was one great structure of artificial origin that had an intellect of it's own 2. The Andromeda Strain - where a specially designed virus is intelligently evolving into one of the greatest threats for humanity
If we broaden the definition of intelligence we can say that every kind of entity - either a person, animal, alien, virus, spaceship or supercomputer can be a bearer of intellect.
Therefore the Universe as the ultimate entity itself is also capable if intellect. And the proof for this as I stated in my first post is the evolution of life and matter.
Yes, this topic is about Universal Intelligence, but since it includes as well both Artificial and Human Intelligence, let me add here an article by a guy called Robert Kosara: http://kosara.net/thoughts/ai.html
To show you his interesting conlusion:
All the points made above make one thing clear: In order to build an artificial intelligence, it must be built as human-like as possible. Without basic human 'ingredients', the resulting mind might not even be recognized as such. This boils down to the feeling that the goal is to build a mere copy of the human mind.
Why on earth, one might wonder, would anybody want to build a copy of the human mind? Isn't the original working fine? Isn't it superior to everything known? Isn't one's mind the most difficult thing to be examined by itself? What would be the use of such an artificial mind, that would need even more artificial means, only to stay human-like?
The only logical solution to this is to completely separate human from artificial intelligence, in order to build something entirely new.
This naturally leads to the idea of a higher principle of Intelligence, that human intelligence is only one manifestation of (in order to distinguish between the traditional human intelligence and this new idea of a more general concept, I want to spell the latter with a capital I: Intelligence). Another one would be artificial intelligence, and another one still the intelligence developed on a planet many lightyears from here. Again, I remind you of the points just made. Considering these, how should a mind that is the result of evolution on an entirely different planet be similar to ours in any way? There must be similarities, but on a higher level: on the level of Intelligence (note the capital I).
In that hierarchy, AI is on the same level as human intelligence, together with animal intelligence and any other kind of intelligence that one might encounter. The following figure illustrates this:
What is maybe most closer (or equal) to the above idea of Universal Intellect is the so called suggestion of Intelligent design:
Intelligent design is the assertion that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a modern form of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, but one which avoids specifying the nature or identity of the designer.
Key support for this statement are some facts that simply are unexplainable by the means of Darwinian Evolutionary Theory:
The term "irreducible complexity" was introduced by biochemist Michael Behe in his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box, though he had already described the concept in his contributions to the 1993 revised edition of Of Pandas and People.[28] Behe defines it as "a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning".
In 1986 the creationist chemist Charles Thaxton used the term "specified complexity" from information theory when claiming that messages transmitted by DNA in the cell were specified by intelligence, and must have originated with an intelligent agent. The intelligent design concept of "specified complexity" was developed in the 1990s by mathematician, philosopher, and theologian William Dembski. Dembski states that when something exhibits specified complexity (i.e., is both complex and "specified", simultaneously), one can infer that it was produced by an intelligent cause (i.e., that it was designed) rather than being the result of natural processes.
Intelligent design proponents also raise occasional arguments outside biology, most notably an argument based on the concept of the fine-tuning of universal constants that make matter and life possible and which are argued not to be solely attributable to chance. These include the values of fundamental physical constants, the relative strength of nuclear forces, electromagnetism, and gravity between fundamental particles, as well as the ratios of masses of such particles.
It is true that the of Intelligent Design is also widely connected and advocated by some Creationist, Christian or other religious groups, but my understanding of this concept is similar to what is presented in a documentary movie called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed but without the propaganda part and connotation.
Intelligent Design should be treated as an equally scientific and intellectual approach toward solving the questions we stand against - and this is in the interest of freedom, science and truth
I've stumbled upon a philosophical essay and after reading it took out one series of questions that according to me make sense, even taken out of the whole text:
Questions Does the universe ask questions? It does, because: The universe demands participation. Participation demands ideas. Ideas demand expression. True expression is elegant. (An accurate representation.) Expression is universal. Elegance is universal. Expression is demanded.
Maybe even this is beginning to change nowadays.
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