[ExI] free-will, determinism, crime and punishment.

[Randall Randall]

On Aug 21, 2007, at 3:21 PM, Michael M. Butler wrote:

> On 8/18/07, Randall Randall <randall at randallsquared.com> wrote:
>
>> Feathers are important for birds, too, but that's
>> no reason to put them on airplanes.
>
> And how many children have airplanes produced? How many songs?
>
> Effort moves toward what is valued. If feelings are completely
> vestigial in your view, I know I don't want to sit next to you on a
> plane ride :).

You're reading too much into my (too terse)
statement.  :)

John Clark asserts, if I remember correctly,
that if emotions weren't necessary for
intelligence, evolution would have removed
them.  I don't know whether emotions are
necessary for intelligence, but the argument
that if they weren't, they'd have been
removed by evolution also proves that you
can't build airplanes without feathers,
because if they weren't necessary for flight,
evolution would have removed them.

The point being, if I'm not belaboring it
too much, that how evolution solved a
problem in biology may say nothing about
how that problem can be most simply solved
in machina, and so without a theory of
intelligence that works, we can't say for
certian whether emotions are necessary for
intelligence, unless we can find examples
both ways.

--
Randall Randall <randall at randallsquared.com>
"This is a fascinating question, right up there with whether rocks
fall because of gravity or being dropped, and whether 3+5=5+3
because addition is commutative or because they both equal 8."
   - Scott Aaronson