[extropy-chat] In the Long Run, How Much Does Intelligence Dominate Space?

Damien Sullivan phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu
Tue Jul 4 21:12:23 UTC 2006


On Tue, Jul 04, 2006 at 11:36:26AM -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:

> Eugen takes the ecosystem view, and adduces the historical
> successes of free markets and other "out of control" systems.
> Russell and I take the "good housekeeping" view, if I might
> phrase it that way, that a powerful intelligence keeps her
> area as clean as a Dutch housewife does hers. This too has
> historical precedents (e.g. some ecosystems are not very
> complicated, having fallen under control of one species,
> or even the Dutch housewife herself).

The area controlled by a Dutch housewife is not an ecosystem.  It is a
small area embedded within a much larger ecosystem, without which the
housewife would be dead.

Organisms (try to) keep themselves clean of other organisms (no bacteria
in our bloodstream, please); "good housekeeping" can exist within
eco-diversity (lots of bacteria in our gut, and we need them.)

> (limited by light speed) an intelligence is really a single-
> willed entity capable of laying down complete governing rules,
> conventions and laws regarding its own space. So what is your
> (or anyone's, of course) rejoinder to that? (After all, unless
> you're a lot crazier that I think :-) your intelligence
> dominates your two hemispheres without much competition!?)

I think it's more like that our inteligence is made up of a lot of
competition, between and within the hemispheres.  There's a common fate
constraining all the cognitive processes -- all in one body (unless you
include memes escaping) -- so a strong pressure to get along, but a
single will imposing rules doesn't strike me as the only or even the
best way of describing what goes on.  More like the Dutch government, a
feedback process coordinating lots of other processes, sometimes for the
common good.

-xx- Damien X-) 



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