tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post110328166806061890..comments2023-10-29T10:32:36.914-04:00Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: The Cost of ThoughtRichard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1103485626071769002004-12-19T14:47:00.000-05:002004-12-19T14:47:00.000-05:00> scientists know how to do controlled experiments...> scientists know how to do controlled experiments! <br /><br />I think you still ahve a problem - your average fly is probably ALREADY being selected for in relation to learning (in every day life) the same things you are puting extra selection on.... That - and selecting for slow learing may be more difficult. you may get flies htat just don't like your reward mixed in with ones that fail.<br /><br />------<br /><br />> Consider how unbelievably big the universe is. <br /><br />we were talikg about in this galixy.<br /><br />> Why do we desire to contact aliens or to explore space? It's to make ourselves feel good - to improve our sense of 'well-being'. <br /><br />ever read the foundation series? (particularly the last 3) expansion is also about security - if you are very advanded but only have one planet a hostile force could probably destroy you. As in foundation it is perfectly rational for a species to design a automated protection system that blazes a path before it. Any smart civilization should consider the possibility and realise that regardless of their pleasure machines having a presence throughout hte universe was a good idea. any way would oyu not have selection for those who did not wnat to sue plesure machines? and in stead just reproduce as fast ans they can and expand?<br /><br /> <br /><br /><A></A><A></A>Posted by<A><B> </B></A><A HREF="http://www.blogger.com/r?http%3A%2F%2Fpixnaps.blogspot.com%2F2004%2F12%2Fcost-of-thought.html%23comments" TITLE="spat012 at hotmail dot com">GeniusNZ</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1103430739092965432004-12-18T23:32:00.000-05:002004-12-18T23:32:00.000-05:00Blar - thanks for the link, I'll have to look into...Blar - thanks for the link, I'll have to look into it (though isn't Wright an "intelligent design" advocate or something?)<br /><br />GeniusNZ - re: your 'inbreeding' complaint, scientists know how to do controlled experiments! Two groups of flies were bred (separately) by the same general method - the only difference was whether they were selected for fast- or slow-learning. Then, come competition, the dumb ones fared better than the smart ones! (It's all in the linked-to article.)<br /><br />CR - I don't want to get too off-topic here, but I've got to make one quick correction:<br /><br />"<I>you can fulfil those desires by re-wiring your conscious mind so that you believe you've fulfilled them</I>"<br /><br />No, you can't. If you have a desire that P, then that desire is fulfilled if and only if P is <I>true in fact</I>. What you're thinking of (the mere <I>belief</I> that P is true) is 'desire satisfaction'. Again, all this is covered in my post on <A HREF="http://www.blogger.com/r?http%3A%2F%2Fpixnaps.blogspot.com%2F2004%2F08%2Fdesire-fulfillment.html">desire fulfillment</A>. (You're welcome to continue the discussion there.)<br /><br />Back to the aliens... I think the statistical argument is fallacious. It neglects the possibility that life on Earth was a unique fluke. And even if life is out there, you're neglecting PZ's argument that human-like intelligence (by which I take it we mean the ability to use logic and think rationally - which can be taken as an absolute standard of sorts) is a biological / evolutionary anomaly. <br /><br /><A></A><A></A>Posted by<A><B> </B></A>RichardAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1103427188607225122004-12-18T22:33:00.000-05:002004-12-18T22:33:00.000-05:00Nice to see you guys discussing evolution for once...Nice to see you guys discussing evolution for once. The idea that conscious thought isn't an evolutionary advantage seems a bit odd to me. The purpose of consciousness is that it allows us to predict in advance by imagining whether a particular event will be 'good' for us or not. It means we don't actually have to go out there and thump the big guy, we can imagine in our heads what the fight will be like and hazard a guess at what our chances are. This is a huge advantage. The reason intelligence has only evolved once (PZ Myers) is only a question of relativity. We're not 'absolutely' intelligent, we're just more intelligent than the other evolutionary creations around at the moment. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I have a different take on why aliens haven't visited the earth yet. <br /><br />Consider how unbelievably big the universe is. For each grain of sand on the earth, there are a million stars. Now that’s a brutally large number of suns with orbiting planets that could provide the necessary conditions for life to exist. <br /><br />Statistically, therefore, there must not only be millions of intelligent life-forms out there, but half of them must be more technologically advanced than we are. Which means we've got a question to answer. How come we haven't seen them yet? If you consider that a hundred years ago we'd only just achieved powered flight, and then sixty years after that we were on the moon, it's just staggering to think where we're going to be in a million years time.<br /><br />So what's the explanation for the lack of aliens?<br /><br />The reason is that they've got nothing to gain from expanding their technology. But not because they're not intelligent. Why do we desire to contact aliens or to explore space? It's to make ourselves feel good - to improve our sense of 'well-being'. The reason Armstrong went to the moon is because he wanted to achieve something, to be respected by his peers, to be admired by the girls - he wanted to feel good.<br /><br />So, all those aliens out there - they also want to feel good. But they've all realised (as we will ourselves in the next hundred years) that there are better and safer ways to feel good than going into space. You simply re-wire your conscious mind so that you feel good all the time, regardless of what happens in the world around you. <br /><br />If you don't like the 'motivational hedonism' take on this, replace it with 'desire fulfillment'. If people always act to fulfil their present desires, and you can fulfil those desires by re-wiring your conscious mind so that you believe you've fulfilled them, then you've got a much more effective solution to the problem of desire-fulfilment than that of trying to conquer an unpredictable and competitive world.<br /><br />The way to end human misery isn't to race into space or to build more fuel-efficent cars - it's to invent drugs that remove the sensation of misery.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><A></A><A></A>Posted by<A><B> </B></A><A HREF="http://www.blogger.com/r?www.consciousrobots.co.uk" TITLE="info at consciousrobot dot co dot uk">ConsciousRobot</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1103413432689772272004-12-18T18:43:00.000-05:002004-12-18T18:43:00.000-05:00If we were not alone we could probably see their w...If we were not alone we could probably see their work without considerable difficulty.<br />Worse yet we would probably have alread met them - I see no reason why a species only a little more advanced than us would not expand at somwhere near the speed of light leaving some sort of representative to contact or anihilate other species. At the speed of light it takes the tinyest fraction of hte 20 billion odd years old universes life to fly across the galixy. <br /><br /><A></A><A></A>Posted by<A><B> </B></A><A HREF="http://www.blogger.com/r?geniusnz.blogspot.com" TITLE="spat012 at hotmail dot com">GeniusNZ</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1103408772004224262004-12-18T17:26:00.000-05:002004-12-18T17:26:00.000-05:00I think we're probably alone as semi-intelligence ...I think we're probably alone as semi-intelligence in at least this galaxy. I'll see you Wright's book and raise you one of Peter Ward's. That said, I tend to think that (proto) "life" is just one of the common manifestations of matter in the universe. But life that evolves enough intelligence for cultural complexity and technology is a shot in the very big and inhospitable dark. We're here and thinking about it, so we tend to look at it as a good possiblitiy that it can happen elsewhere. Any little change in galactic circumstance or Earth history and nobody'd be here to care. <br /><br /><A></A><A></A>Posted by<A><B> </B></A><A HREF="http://www.blogger.com/r?http%3A%2F%2Fpixnaps.blogspot.com%2F2004%2F12%2Fcost-of-thought.html%23comments" TITLE="olduvai at nycap dot rr dot com">OGeorge</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1103364635754702532004-12-18T05:10:00.000-05:002004-12-18T05:10:00.000-05:00IQ's are apparently getting higher - in fact by a ...IQ's are apparently getting higher - in fact by a pretty significant degree each generation.<br />But of course that is probably due to better food education etc.<br />I think intelligence is sometimes selected for sometimes not. I guess when one expects too much one can often get surprised<br />now a fruit flys bread for intelligence probably have all the normal inbreeding problems and thus dont win competitions. If you look at just about any task peopel ahve intelligence helps and it was HUGEly beneficial when political intrigue was required for survival. now it is less important but largely because we are socialist. anyway TV level intelligence is likely to persist long enough to permit genetic engineering <br /><br /><A></A><A></A>Posted by<A><B> </B></A><A HREF="http://www.blogger.com/r?geniusnz.blogspot.com" TITLE="spat012 at hotmail dot com">GeniusNZ</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1103363166934357912004-12-18T04:46:00.000-05:002004-12-18T04:46:00.000-05:00Not everyone agrees with PZ Myers's view. Robert ...Not everyone agrees with PZ Myers's view. Robert Wright, for instance, has written a book arguing that the appearance of intelligence was very likely once evolution got going. He also argues that cultures tend to develop towards greater complexity and technology. I don't have the expertise to arbitrate the opposing claims, but if you want to see the other side of the argument Wright's book is called Nonzero, and there's a relevant excerpt <A HREF="http://www.blogger.com/r?http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nonzero.org%2Fchap19.htm">here</A>. <br /><br /><A></A><A></A>Posted by<A><B> </B></A><A HREF="http://www.blogger.com/r?http%3A%2F%2Fblarblog.blogspot.com" TITLE="blarghblog at hotmail dot com">Blar</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com