[ExI] Science or Science

[William Flynn Wallace]

stuart wrote ;

 wanted to see how you tried to distinguish signs of
intelligence/consciousness in something very much larger than you were. In
something so very different than a human being, what constitutes
intelligent behavior and what constitutes merely complex behavior might be
hard to distinguish.

I object to your use of the word 'merely'.  In fact I do a lot of thinking
about DNA.  Hard to find more complex behavior than that.  Sometimes I
think of it as having a purpose - teleology.  Does it know what it is
doing; is it trying to make something better?; or is it merely chemistry?

But what are we at base - merely chemistry?

bill w

On Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 12:10 PM Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com> wrote:

> BillW wrote:
>
> > Maybe it's just too early in the day for me to 'get it'.  What with my
> > heat tolerance being so low, I did not try to get close enough to the
> > subject to perform the test, so I have to say it's untestable.  Since it
> > is doing what it designed to do perfectly, then I have to say, given its
> > very limited behavior range, it's like a person with an IQ of 25 who can
> > bag groceries very adequately.  Perhaps that person has Down's Syndrome.
> > They have a reputation for having a sunny personality.
> > So what should I be getting out of this?
>
> You had earlier wrote:
> "Consciousness is a physical reality with which you can do experiments
> with testable hypotheses."
>
> I wanted to see how you tried to distinguish signs of
> intelligence/consciousness in something very much larger than you were. In
> something so very different than a human being, what constitutes
> intelligent behavior and what constitutes merely complex behavior might be
> hard to distinguish.
>
> Xenopsychology is likely to become a real thing as AI progresses.
>
> I think your assessment of the sun's IQ to be about 25 to be well-reasoned
> psychological opinion.
>
> Plus the video was just plain cool. How often do you get to look at the
> sun from that distance with eyes that can see UV light?
>
> Thanks for humoring my bizarre request. :-)
>
> Stuart LaForge
>
>
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