Re: virus: Culture....

zaimoni@ksu.edu
Sun, 12 Jan 1997 22:16:37 -0600 (CST)


On Sun, 22 Dec 1996, Alex Williams wrote:

> > But what you imagine a certain species of chimps or dolphins to have is
> > not culture, and that is all I am saying.
>
> [snip]
>
> > So yes, I am limiting the definition of the word, to something usable and
> > servicable, IMHO.
>
> This just happens to hit one of my hot buttons, as I will now reveal.
>
> Having been involved with the search for Artificial Intelligence, if
> you will, since I was in High School, and this /exact/ argument has
> been applied to the definition of `intelligence,' to stating that
> animals do not exhibit intelligence because its not /human/
> intelligence and that machines, thus, can never exhibit intelligence.
>
> Those who really understand the subject, however, have taken to rating
> intelligence as a /continum/, rather than a binary state. Humans are
> more intelligent than chimpanzees are more intelligent than ants are
> more intelligent than bacteria. But all of those things exhibit
> aspects and degrees of intelligence as befits their scales.

I would distinguish the AI in the functioning of the human body, from the
intelligence of the human mind. Homeostasis methods are the most blatant
example of this.

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/ Towards the conversion of data into information....
/
/ Kenneth Boyd
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