CDZ Three unanswered yet interesting questions pertaining to life

[Never3ndr]

Sure there are some smart animals out there, but they do not hold a candle to human intelligence.

The only intelligence we humans can understand is human intelligence. Judging the intelligence of different species by evaluating how closely theirs resembles our own is an exercise in provincial chauvanism.

"We can imagine what it is like to be a cat, but we cannot imagine what it is like for a cat to be a cat."

No other species is sufficiently "intelligent" to destroy millions of its own young and to systematically destroy the habitat necessary for its survival. How intelligent is that?

A ridiculous statement. We are on the verge of creating intelligence greater than our own, but we can't understand animal intelligence? Well I guess that leaves the whole fields of zoology and behavioral psychology moot. And animals eat their own young all the time!!! They have no clue what they do to their own habitat!!! Outside of a handful they cannot purposefully manipulate the environment around them to their advantage. Nor can they hypothetically think.

I don't know what sort of sci-fi you have been reading, but we aren't even close to creating AI greater than our own. I actually suspect that we won't have that tech until our computing technology becomes some sort of bio-tech hybrid. As we learn and grow the very structure of our brain changes...I don't think that real AI will be able to come to fruition until what we use to build that AI gains the ability to physically change it's base structure as it gains more knowledge.

 

[Vandalshandle]

Sure there are some smart animals out there, but they do not hold a candle to human intelligence.

The only intelligence we humans can understand is human intelligence. Judging the intelligence of different species by evaluating how closely theirs resembles our own is an exercise in provincial chauvanism.

"We can imagine what it is like to be a cat, but we cannot imagine what it is like for a cat to be a cat."

No other species is sufficiently "intelligent" to destroy millions of its own young and to systematically destroy the habitat necessary for its survival. How intelligent is that?

A ridiculous statement. We are on the verge of creating intelligence greater than our own, but we can't understand animal intelligence? Well I guess that leaves the whole fields of zoology and behavioral psychology moot. And animals eat their own young all the time!!! They have no clue what they do to their own habitat!!! Outside of a handful they cannot purposefully manipulate the environment around them to their advantage. Nor can they hypothetically think.

I don't know what sort of sci-fi you have been reading, but we aren't even close to creating AI greater than our own. I actually suspect that we won't have that tech until our computing technology becomes some sort of bio-tech hybrid. As we learn and grow the very structure of our brain changes...I don't think that real AI will be able to come to fruition until what we use to build that AI gains the ability to physically change it's base structure as it gains more knowledge.

I disagree. I think that it is coming faster than we thought. Hell, 10 years ago, I would have said that a self driving car would not be possible in my lifetime, but they already exist.

 

[Never3ndr]

Sure there are some smart animals out there, but they do not hold a candle to human intelligence.

The only intelligence we humans can understand is human intelligence. Judging the intelligence of different species by evaluating how closely theirs resembles our own is an exercise in provincial chauvanism.

"We can imagine what it is like to be a cat, but we cannot imagine what it is like for a cat to be a cat."

No other species is sufficiently "intelligent" to destroy millions of its own young and to systematically destroy the habitat necessary for its survival. How intelligent is that?

A ridiculous statement. We are on the verge of creating intelligence greater than our own, but we can't understand animal intelligence? Well I guess that leaves the whole fields of zoology and behavioral psychology moot. And animals eat their own young all the time!!! They have no clue what they do to their own habitat!!! Outside of a handful they cannot purposefully manipulate the environment around them to their advantage. Nor can they hypothetically think.

I don't know what sort of sci-fi you have been reading, but we aren't even close to creating AI greater than our own. I actually suspect that we won't have that tech until our computing technology becomes some sort of bio-tech hybrid. As we learn and grow the very structure of our brain changes...I don't think that real AI will be able to come to fruition until what we use to build that AI gains the ability to physically change it's base structure as it gains more knowledge.

I disagree. I think that it is coming faster than we thought. Hell, 10 years ago, I would have said that a self driving car would not be possible in my lifetime, but they already exist.

I think you mistake intelligence for computation. Our tech has the ability to surpass us in specific tasks using parameters we define for it and acting according to a ruleset that we give it. Our tech has no ability to do anything given no terms to define...it doesn't have an ability (and isn't close to the ability) to seek out information that it wasn't specifically programmed to do or learn new tasks it was never designed for.

A simple example is our basic calculator. Other than maybe a few basic problems we have memorized or can easily compute ourselves (like 3 + 8 or 10 x 21) we, generally, are no match for even this basic tool when it comes to a bit more complex problems (like 18,203 x 4,384). But I don't think anybody is going to say that the basic calculator as being intelligent or being close to intelligent. Similarly, our tech has exponentially grown in its ability to compute...the google search engine is probably one of our greatest examples of being able to take a wide variety of input variables (your search string), run that against its vast database of websites, and generate favorable results. It even has the ability to "learn" what things you tend to search for the most and attempt to generate results closer to what it perceives you are looking for. However, by absolutely no definition would anybody say that the google search engine is intelligent. It is doing a complex computational job and has been programmed to try and personalize itself and generate better results, but the google search engine isn't going to all of a sudden learn to play chess. It isn't going to generate it's own opinion on our current political landscape. It isn't going to reprogram itself in order to become a self-driving car program (like we can change career fields).

We have wondrous computational tech and our tech's ability to do things is growing exponentially. Don't mistake our tech's computational ability, however, for being close to intellect.

 

[sakinago]

Why did some animals evolve and some not?
Why are there no animals in "between" stages of evolution?

because those animals have filled a niche, were they, in the current state of the planet, have a way to survive and reproduce that hasn't led to them being extinct

so some animals "knew" to evolve and some didn't? What's the scientific reasoning for this?

No, never said they knew. They are in a state where they are able to survive and reproduce, therefore they have not gone extinct. They go extinct when they are no longer able to do that, whether some sort of change, cataclysmic event, new predator, competitor etc. changes that

 

[sakinago]

Sure there are some smart animals out there, but they do not hold a candle to human intelligence.

The only intelligence we humans can understand is human intelligence. Judging the intelligence of different species by evaluating how closely theirs resembles our own is an exercise in provincial chauvanism.

"We can imagine what it is like to be a cat, but we cannot imagine what it is like for a cat to be a cat."

No other species is sufficiently "intelligent" to destroy millions of its own young and to systematically destroy the habitat necessary for its survival. How intelligent is that?

A ridiculous statement. We are on the verge of creating intelligence greater than our own, but we can't understand animal intelligence? Well I guess that leaves the whole fields of zoology and behavioral psychology moot. And animals eat their own young all the time!!! They have no clue what they do to their own habitat!!! Outside of a handful they cannot purposefully manipulate the environment around them to their advantage. Nor can they hypothetically think.

I don't know what sort of sci-fi you have been reading, but we aren't even close to creating AI greater than our own. I actually suspect that we won't have that tech until our computing technology becomes some sort of bio-tech hybrid. As we learn and grow the very structure of our brain changes...I don't think that real AI will be able to come to fruition until what we use to build that AI gains the ability to physically change it's base structure as it gains more knowledge.

I disagree. I think that it is coming faster than we thought. Hell, 10 years ago, I would have said that a self driving car would not be possible in my lifetime, but they already exist.

I think you mistake intelligence for computation. Our tech has the ability to surpass us in specific tasks using parameters we define for it and acting according to a ruleset that we give it. Our tech has no ability to do anything given no terms to define...it doesn't have an ability (and isn't close to the ability) to seek out information that it wasn't specifically programmed to do or learn new tasks it was never designed for.

A simple example is our basic calculator. Other than maybe a few basic problems we have memorized or can easily compute ourselves (like 3 + 8 or 10 x 21) we, generally, are no match for even this basic tool when it comes to a bit more complex problems (like 18,203 x 4,384). But I don't think anybody is going to say that the basic calculator as being intelligent or being close to intelligent. Similarly, our tech has exponentially grown in its ability to compute...the google search engine is probably one of our greatest examples of being able to take a wide variety of input variables (your search string), run that against its vast database of websites, and generate favorable results. It even has the ability to "learn" what things you tend to search for the most and attempt to generate results closer to what it perceives you are looking for. However, by absolutely no definition would anybody say that the google search engine is intelligent. It is doing a complex computational job and has been programmed to try and personalize itself and generate better results, but the google search engine isn't going to all of a sudden learn to play chess. It isn't going to generate it's own opinion on our current political landscape. It isn't going to reprogram itself in order to become a self-driving car program (like we can change career fields).

We have wondrous computational tech and our tech's ability to do things is growing exponentially. Don't mistake our tech's computational ability, however, for being close to intellect.

I was referring to artificial INTELLIGENCE. Operative word there being intelligence. Big difference between computation and intelligence

 

[Fishlore]

Sure there are some smart animals out there, but they do not hold a candle to human intelligence.

The only intelligence we humans can understand is human intelligence. Judging the intelligence of different species by evaluating how closely theirs resembles our own is an exercise in provincial chauvanism.

"We can imagine what it is like to be a cat, but we cannot imagine what it is like for a cat to be a cat."

No other species is sufficiently "intelligent" to destroy millions of its own young and to systematically destroy the habitat necessary for its survival. How intelligent is that?

A ridiculous statement. We are on the verge of creating intelligence greater than our own, but we can't understand animal intelligence? Well I guess that leaves the whole fields of zoology and behavioral psychology moot. And animals eat their own young all the time!!! They have no clue what they do to their own habitat!!! Outside of a handful they cannot purposefully manipulate the environment around them to their advantage. Nor can they hypothetically think.

Calling a statement you obviously don't understand "ridiculous" is a good example of the anthropocentric thinking that I described. Your assumption is that "intelligence" is an individual cognitive function. This is the structure of human "intelligence" but is not the only possibility. I suggest Star Trek and a study of the Borg. That is science fiction, not science fact; however the stories are predicated on ideas which quite clearly have never occurred to you and presented in an accessible form to the philosophically untutored.

 

[320 Years of History]

I get this might not necassarily belong in CDZ, but since I can't stand any of the other forums, this is where I'm posting it. I hope that this becomes a fun conversation

First question: How did chemicals from lifeless reactions, turn into life?

Second: How did the early simple, single cell prokaryotic forms of life that had reached their available energy threshold, jumped to a higher energy threshold and turn into a eukaryotic form. A much more complex cell, that becomes the building block for complex life.

Finally: How did the jump happen from standard animal intelligence to human consciousness? Sure there are some smart animals out there, but they do not hold a candle to human intelligence.

Out of curiosity, why have you even posed the questions you have, as you have posed them, for discussion in this venue? I'm asking that question because the best answers to your questions are found in published documents easily Googled. For example, below is a graphic and high level depiction of the most current answer for your first question:



(click the image to access the article from which it comes)

Asking the "peanut gallery" here is only going to incite puerile "debate" among folks who by and large haven't a clue about the chemistry, the scientific method, the full theory of evolution, or deductive and inductive reasoning. Nobody here is going to objectively address the merit (or gaps) in the science that attempts to answer your questions; they're just going to tell you what they think, as if that has a damn thing to do with what the actual causes and processes were/are.

The answer to your second question is also easily Googled. Ditto the answers to the third question you asked. You can even use Google Scholar to get even better and more detailed explanations.

So, yes, I agree with you that this, as you've presented it, isn't even a topic for debate outside of highly skilled/trained scientific communities where the members will delve in great detail into the research methodologies applied by the various proposers of critically objective researchers into the several approaches that have been proposed.

 

[Never3ndr]

Sure there are some smart animals out there, but they do not hold a candle to human intelligence.

The only intelligence we humans can understand is human intelligence. Judging the intelligence of different species by evaluating how closely theirs resembles our own is an exercise in provincial chauvanism.

"We can imagine what it is like to be a cat, but we cannot imagine what it is like for a cat to be a cat."

No other species is sufficiently "intelligent" to destroy millions of its own young and to systematically destroy the habitat necessary for its survival. How intelligent is that?

A ridiculous statement. We are on the verge of creating intelligence greater than our own, but we can't understand animal intelligence? Well I guess that leaves the whole fields of zoology and behavioral psychology moot. And animals eat their own young all the time!!! They have no clue what they do to their own habitat!!! Outside of a handful they cannot purposefully manipulate the environment around them to their advantage. Nor can they hypothetically think.

I don't know what sort of sci-fi you have been reading, but we aren't even close to creating AI greater than our own. I actually suspect that we won't have that tech until our computing technology becomes some sort of bio-tech hybrid. As we learn and grow the very structure of our brain changes...I don't think that real AI will be able to come to fruition until what we use to build that AI gains the ability to physically change it's base structure as it gains more knowledge.

I disagree. I think that it is coming faster than we thought. Hell, 10 years ago, I would have said that a self driving car would not be possible in my lifetime, but they already exist.

I think you mistake intelligence for computation. Our tech has the ability to surpass us in specific tasks using parameters we define for it and acting according to a ruleset that we give it. Our tech has no ability to do anything given no terms to define...it doesn't have an ability (and isn't close to the ability) to seek out information that it wasn't specifically programmed to do or learn new tasks it was never designed for.

A simple example is our basic calculator. Other than maybe a few basic problems we have memorized or can easily compute ourselves (like 3 + 8 or 10 x 21) we, generally, are no match for even this basic tool when it comes to a bit more complex problems (like 18,203 x 4,384). But I don't think anybody is going to say that the basic calculator as being intelligent or being close to intelligent. Similarly, our tech has exponentially grown in its ability to compute...the google search engine is probably one of our greatest examples of being able to take a wide variety of input variables (your search string), run that against its vast database of websites, and generate favorable results. It even has the ability to "learn" what things you tend to search for the most and attempt to generate results closer to what it perceives you are looking for. However, by absolutely no definition would anybody say that the google search engine is intelligent. It is doing a complex computational job and has been programmed to try and personalize itself and generate better results, but the google search engine isn't going to all of a sudden learn to play chess. It isn't going to generate it's own opinion on our current political landscape. It isn't going to reprogram itself in order to become a self-driving car program (like we can change career fields).

We have wondrous computational tech and our tech's ability to do things is growing exponentially. Don't mistake our tech's computational ability, however, for being close to intellect.

I was referring to artificial INTELLIGENCE. Operative word there being intelligence. Big difference between computation and intelligence

Like I said, we aren't even close. If you want to point towards a modern example of something close to self-thinking and intelligent, then please feel free to fill me in. Maybe I've missed something as I don't follow tech as closely as I used to. Just remember that you shouldn't confuse the ability to do complex tasks with intelligence...as it is, in every single case I am aware of, simply a matter of complex computational output versus given inputs.

 

[sakinago]

I get this might not necassarily belong in CDZ, but since I can't stand any of the other forums, this is where I'm posting it. I hope that this becomes a fun conversation

First question: How did chemicals from lifeless reactions, turn into life?

Second: How did the early simple, single cell prokaryotic forms of life that had reached their available energy threshold, jumped to a higher energy threshold and turn into a eukaryotic form. A much more complex cell, that becomes the building block for complex life.

Finally: How did the jump happen from standard animal intelligence to human consciousness? Sure there are some smart animals out there, but they do not hold a candle to human intelligence.

Out of curiosity, why have you even posed the questions you have, as you have posed them, for discussion in this venue? I'm asking that question because the best answers to your questions are found in published documents easily Googled. For example, below is a graphic and high level depiction of the most current answer for your first question:



(click the image to access the article from which it comes)

Asking the "peanut gallery" here is only going to incite puerile "debate" among folks who by and large haven't a clue about the chemistry, the scientific method, the full theory of evolution, or deductive and inductive reasoning. Nobody here is going to objectively address the merit (or gaps) in the science that attempts to answer your questions; they're just going to tell you what they think, as if that has a damn thing to do with what the actual causes and processes were/are.

The answer to your second question is also easily Googled. Ditto the answers to the third question you asked. You can even use Google Scholar to get even better and more detailed explanations.

So, yes, I agree with you that this, as you've presented it, isn't even a topic for debate outside of highly skilled/trained scientific communities where the members will delve in great detail into the research methodologies applied by the various proposers of critically objective researchers into the several approaches that have been proposed.

I asked these questions for a couple of reasons. One being that they are the questions that really don't have solid answers too, yes there are some good new theories out there, but so was chemical evolution, the version that was very popular for about 80 or so years (and they taught that for about 10 years after it wasn't looking like that was the case). Honestly I think they're good questions to ponder about, the fact that there is more than we started out as bacteria and turned into what we are now. These are the questions that the greatest evolutionary biologist scratch their head about. Just like physicist still scratch their head about dark energy, it's there but what makes it there. And I also wanted to see people's reactions to these questions. See how deep they think

 

[sealybobo]

Why did some animals evolve and some not?
Why are there no animals in "between" stages of evolution?

A lot of animals live less than 20 years. How smart were you when you were 19?

 

[sealybobo]

I get this might not necassarily belong in CDZ, but since I can't stand any of the other forums, this is where I'm posting it. I hope that this becomes a fun conversation

First question: How did chemicals from lifeless reactions, turn into life?

Second: How did the early simple, single cell prokaryotic forms of life that had reached their available energy threshold, jumped to a higher energy threshold and turn into a eukaryotic form. A much more complex cell, that becomes the building block for complex life.

Finally: How did the jump happen from standard animal intelligence to human consciousness? Sure there are some smart animals out there, but they do not hold a candle to human intelligence.

Out of curiosity, why have you even posed the questions you have, as you have posed them, for discussion in this venue? I'm asking that question because the best answers to your questions are found in published documents easily Googled. For example, below is a graphic and high level depiction of the most current answer for your first question:



(click the image to access the article from which it comes)

Asking the "peanut gallery" here is only going to incite puerile "debate" among folks who by and large haven't a clue about the chemistry, the scientific method, the full theory of evolution, or deductive and inductive reasoning. Nobody here is going to objectively address the merit (or gaps) in the science that attempts to answer your questions; they're just going to tell you what they think, as if that has a damn thing to do with what the actual causes and processes were/are.

The answer to your second question is also easily Googled. Ditto the answers to the third question you asked. You can even use Google Scholar to get even better and more detailed explanations.

So, yes, I agree with you that this, as you've presented it, isn't even a topic for debate outside of highly skilled/trained scientific communities where the members will delve in great detail into the research methodologies applied by the various proposers of critically objective researchers into the several approaches that have been proposed.

I asked these questions for a couple of reasons. One being that they are the questions that really don't have solid answers too, yes there are some good new theories out there, but so was chemical evolution, the version that was very popular for about 80 or so years (and they taught that for about 10 years after it wasn't looking like that was the case). Honestly I think they're good questions to ponder about, the fact that there is more than we started out as bacteria and turned into what we are now. These are the questions that the greatest evolutionary biologist scratch their head about. Just like physicist still scratch their head about dark energy, it's there but what makes it there. And I also wanted to see people's reactions to these questions. See how deep they think

Look at how quickly we turned wolves into dogs. Imagine what nature can do in a million years.

What is the theory on how our intelligence came to be? I heard if we disappeared there wouldnt be another animal that would eventually evolve to build cars. Why is that? Why was our intelligence a fluke?

 

[sakinago]

A ridiculous statement. We are on the verge of creating intelligence greater than our own, but we can't understand animal intelligence? Well I guess that leaves the whole fields of zoology and behavioral psychology moot. And animals eat their own young all the time!!! They have no clue what they do to their own habitat!!! Outside of a handful they cannot purposefully manipulate the environment around them to their advantage. Nor can they hypothetically think.

I don't know what sort of sci-fi you have been reading, but we aren't even close to creating AI greater than our own. I actually suspect that we won't have that tech until our computing technology becomes some sort of bio-tech hybrid. As we learn and grow the very structure of our brain changes...I don't think that real AI will be able to come to fruition until what we use to build that AI gains the ability to physically change it's base structure as it gains more knowledge.

I disagree. I think that it is coming faster than we thought. Hell, 10 years ago, I would have said that a self driving car would not be possible in my lifetime, but they already exist.

I think you mistake intelligence for computation. Our tech has the ability to surpass us in specific tasks using parameters we define for it and acting according to a ruleset that we give it. Our tech has no ability to do anything given no terms to define...it doesn't have an ability (and isn't close to the ability) to seek out information that it wasn't specifically programmed to do or learn new tasks it was never designed for.

A simple example is our basic calculator. Other than maybe a few basic problems we have memorized or can easily compute ourselves (like 3 + 8 or 10 x 21) we, generally, are no match for even this basic tool when it comes to a bit more complex problems (like 18,203 x 4,384). But I don't think anybody is going to say that the basic calculator as being intelligent or being close to intelligent. Similarly, our tech has exponentially grown in its ability to compute...the google search engine is probably one of our greatest examples of being able to take a wide variety of input variables (your search string), run that against its vast database of websites, and generate favorable results. It even has the ability to "learn" what things you tend to search for the most and attempt to generate results closer to what it perceives you are looking for. However, by absolutely no definition would anybody say that the google search engine is intelligent. It is doing a complex computational job and has been programmed to try and personalize itself and generate better results, but the google search engine isn't going to all of a sudden learn to play chess. It isn't going to generate it's own opinion on our current political landscape. It isn't going to reprogram itself in order to become a self-driving car program (like we can change career fields).

We have wondrous computational tech and our tech's ability to do things is growing exponentially. Don't mistake our tech's computational ability, however, for being close to intellect.

I was referring to artificial INTELLIGENCE. Operative word there being intelligence. Big difference between computation and intelligence

Like I said, we aren't even close. If you want to point towards a modern example of something close to self-thinking and intelligent, then please feel free to fill me in. Maybe I've missed something as I don't follow tech as closely as I used to. Just remember that you shouldn't confuse the ability to do complex tasks with intelligence...as it is, in every single case I am aware of, simply a matter of complex computational output versus given inputs.

This is a wildly off topic conversation that started with another wildly off topic post that I made a response to. I don't even know why I'm still discussing it...but we are within reach of creating an AI within the next 15 or so years. Meaning that outside of probably being much smarter than us, we will have a very hard time disproving that it is not as conscious as you or I. The only thing we have over computers currently, is that we can process many multiple things at the same time, while computers still do one thing at a time, but they do it very quickly. What happens when we start to develop quantum computing more? We have already developed it, its capabilities are currently comparable to the touring device, but that will certainly change. Have I made my point clear enough about the disparities between animal vs human intelligence?

 

[Never3ndr]

I don't know what sort of sci-fi you have been reading, but we aren't even close to creating AI greater than our own. I actually suspect that we won't have that tech until our computing technology becomes some sort of bio-tech hybrid. As we learn and grow the very structure of our brain changes...I don't think that real AI will be able to come to fruition until what we use to build that AI gains the ability to physically change it's base structure as it gains more knowledge.

I disagree. I think that it is coming faster than we thought. Hell, 10 years ago, I would have said that a self driving car would not be possible in my lifetime, but they already exist.

I think you mistake intelligence for computation. Our tech has the ability to surpass us in specific tasks using parameters we define for it and acting according to a ruleset that we give it. Our tech has no ability to do anything given no terms to define...it doesn't have an ability (and isn't close to the ability) to seek out information that it wasn't specifically programmed to do or learn new tasks it was never designed for.

A simple example is our basic calculator. Other than maybe a few basic problems we have memorized or can easily compute ourselves (like 3 + 8 or 10 x 21) we, generally, are no match for even this basic tool when it comes to a bit more complex problems (like 18,203 x 4,384). But I don't think anybody is going to say that the basic calculator as being intelligent or being close to intelligent. Similarly, our tech has exponentially grown in its ability to compute...the google search engine is probably one of our greatest examples of being able to take a wide variety of input variables (your search string), run that against its vast database of websites, and generate favorable results. It even has the ability to "learn" what things you tend to search for the most and attempt to generate results closer to what it perceives you are looking for. However, by absolutely no definition would anybody say that the google search engine is intelligent. It is doing a complex computational job and has been programmed to try and personalize itself and generate better results, but the google search engine isn't going to all of a sudden learn to play chess. It isn't going to generate it's own opinion on our current political landscape. It isn't going to reprogram itself in order to become a self-driving car program (like we can change career fields).

We have wondrous computational tech and our tech's ability to do things is growing exponentially. Don't mistake our tech's computational ability, however, for being close to intellect.

I was referring to artificial INTELLIGENCE. Operative word there being intelligence. Big difference between computation and intelligence

Like I said, we aren't even close. If you want to point towards a modern example of something close to self-thinking and intelligent, then please feel free to fill me in. Maybe I've missed something as I don't follow tech as closely as I used to. Just remember that you shouldn't confuse the ability to do complex tasks with intelligence...as it is, in every single case I am aware of, simply a matter of complex computational output versus given inputs.

This is a wildly off topic conversation that started with another wildly off topic post that I made a response to. I don't even know why I'm still discussing it...but we are within reach of creating an AI within the next 15 or so years. Meaning that outside of probably being much smarter than us, we will have a very hard time disproving that it is not as conscious as you or I. The only thing we have over computers currently, is that we can process many multiple things at the same time, while computers still do one thing at a time, but they do it very quickly. What happens when we start to develop quantum computing more? We have already developed it, its capabilities are currently comparable to the touring device, but that will certainly change. Have I made my point clear enough about the disparities between animal vs human intelligence?

Again, I'll point to the fact that you watch too many sci-fi movies. I just pointed out that we have the ability to decide what to learn and the ability to learn things outside our original scope or purpose (you can go from being a farmer to being in business administration to being a police officer...you have the ability to do whatever you want, whereas a computer has ZERO ability to change its original programming or design intent). You speak about quantum computing like it is a reality...news flash...it isn't, it's only being researched there are zero quantum systems up and running in the market, so you don't know what it will bring if anything when it does arrive. Also, the fact that you believe that we would create an AI that would be more intelligent than us (at least at the beginning) rather than something more similar to a small child or basic beast is absurd and kinda speaks to the fact that you are putting yourself in some sort of hyper-realistic world that we don't currently live in. This isn't the Matrix, this is real life. If you were to say that we were a minimum of 50-100 years out from true AI then I could accept that as at least an optimistic assessment rather than an unrealistic one. I mean we have been dreaming of flying cars since the 50's doesn't make it any more real. There are complex issues we aren't even beginning to understand when it comes to constructing an AI.

As far as your OP, I've already given my answer...random chance. Attempting to assign reason or meaning when we currently have no evidence to support such theories may be popular (I mean Zeus worked for explaining and giving reason to lightening for hundreds of years) but that doesn't make it any more true.

 

[Bonzi]

Why did some animals evolve and some not?
Why are there no animals in "between" stages of evolution?

A lot of animals live less than 20 years. How smart were you when you were 19?

That's not what I mean. Good gosh. Anyway, I hate this discussion because (1) I don't know enough about the science of cells, life etc. but it all point to evolution NOT being possible and (2) it never goes anywhere and people just get freaked out.

 

[RWS]

ok I was smokin with my butthole of a friend and we got to talking about this stuff... this is my theory about it...

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... there was this HUGE, like, explosion! Or something like that! It was really loud and big and probably disturbed a lot of things... And people were like, "whoah.... ". Well today, because there were no people back then. But then this thing got really hot, and got really big really fast.... hehe kinda like me when i read national geographic... and it GREW and started to make like these little particles and stuff all around it! And everything started like, revolving around things. They would crash sometimes and like, make new things! Unlike my butthole friend who crashes and destroys things... what a dunghole... Anyway... so like the stuff was spinning around in space and stuff, and things would like "coalesce" (i learned that word today), and dude... things started to happen! That's when life started man... it wasn't on Earth...

Life, is like, the universe and stuff...

It is like waaaay more intricate than our dna... (i learned that word today too)

so, you know, if stuff like the universe life can happen, why are we special?

 

[Bonzi]

we are NOT special, but we THINK we have to think so to justify our existence

 

[RWS]

whoa... that's heavy man...

i exist because i think i do...

and god exists because i can't understand it...

 

[Bonzi]

no, we exist.
I had a dream last night I was making out with Prince. It was gross.
It was even more gross when I woke up and remembered he is dead.

You can't understand God because he's unknowable unless you have a relationship with him.
And even then, there will always be mysteries because we are still human - in imperfect bodies living in an imperfect world

 

[sealybobo]

Why did some animals evolve and some not?
Why are there no animals in "between" stages of evolution?

A lot of animals live less than 20 years. How smart were you when you were 19?

That's not what I mean. Good gosh. Anyway, I hate this discussion because (1) I don't know enough about the science of cells, life etc. but it all point to evolution NOT being possible and (2) it never goes anywhere and people just get freaked out.

Well, all animals evolved.

And every animal is in between stages of evolution. It happens so slowly over many many generations. So slow you'll never see it. You didn't notice when man became man. It happened over thousands of years.

 

[RWS]

I;m listening to 1999 right now... RIP!

We're like bacteria in our colon...

We are so great because we can break things down and make new things from it.

But the universe has been doing that for almost 14 billion years... We are definitely not special, and very inferior. We are a part of universal life... If you want to call universal life "god", then that's cool with me.

But god is definitely not an old man in the sky telling us to kill people!