<h1 class="headline">'A Perfect and Beautiful Machine': What Darwin's Theory of Evolution Reveals About Artificial Intelligence</h1>I thought it was a pleasurable read. Dennett equates Alan Turing with Charles Darwin. <br>
<br>"Turing, like Darwin, broke down the mystery of intelligence (or
Intelligent Design) into what we might call atomic steps of dumb
happenstance, which, when accumulated by the millions, added up to a
sort of pseudo-intelligence.
"<br>"We still haven't arrived at "real" understanding in robots, but we
are getting closer. That, at least, is the conviction of those of us
inspired by Turing's insight. The trickle-down theorists are sure in
their bones that no amount of further building will ever get us to the
real thing. They think that a Cartesian <i>res cogitans</i>, a thinking
thing, cannot be constructed out of Turing's building blocks. And
creationists are similarly sure in their bones that no amount of
Darwinian shuffling and copying and selecting could ever arrive at
(real) living things. They are wrong, but one can appreciate the
discomfort that motivates their conviction.
<p>Turing's strange inversion of reason, like Darwin's, goes against the
grain of millennia of earlier thought. If the history of resistance to
Darwinian thinking is a good measure, we can expect that long into the
future, long after every triumph of human thought has been matched or
surpassed by "mere machines," there will still be thinkers who insist
that the human mind works in mysterious ways that no science can
comprehend."</p>P.s it is Alan Turing's 100th birthday today (23rd).<br><br clear="all"><div>Kind regards,<br><br>Adam A. Ford<br><span style="color:rgb(102,102,102)">Singularity Summit Australia Coordinator</span><br style="color:rgb(102,102,102)">
<span style="color:rgb(102,102,102)">H+ Australia, H+ @ Melbourne Summit Coordinator</span></div>
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<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 5:53 AM, Max More <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:max@maxmore.com" target="_blank">max@maxmore.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>Haven't time to read it yet, but Dennett's probably worth reading on this combination of topics:</div><div><br></div><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/a-perfect-and-beautiful-machine-what-darwins-theory-of-evolution-reveals-about-artificial-intelligence/258829/" target="_blank">http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/a-perfect-and-beautiful-machine-what-darwins-theory-of-evolution-reveals-about-artificial-intelligence/258829/</a> <span><font color="#888888"><br>
<br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div>Max More, PhD</div><div>Strategic Philosopher</div><div>Co-editor, <i>The Transhumanist Reader</i></div><div>CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation</div><div>7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110</div>
<div>Scottsdale, AZ 85260</div><div><a href="tel:480%2F905-1906%20ext%20113" value="+14809051906" target="_blank">480/905-1906 ext 113</a></div><br>
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