Comment by getgoingnow | Hacker News Reader

Comment by getgoingnow | Hacker News Reader

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Could you offer an abstract definition of "life" and "intelligence" (or maybe even 'thinking' or 'consciousness') ?

For example, if you're trying to figure out whether something is 'moving', you would define the term in such a way that it could apply to planets or animals or other things/systems. If you define 'motion' = 'humans putting one leg in front of another', then of course non-human animals or anything else couldn't move. But, that definition is too restrictive. If you're trying to say that animals can't move, then provide a more abstract definition of 'motion' (e.g. 'change in location') and then you will see animals and many other things start moving.

Here is a video with a good explanation of how a lack of an abstract definition results in confusion:

  https://youtu.be/_Wvv-bt9SzI?t=11s

No, I couldn't. It's terribly difficult to define, and the more you try, the harder it becomes. I think it's a bit easier if you try to generally define it in terms of what we think it isn't: the average layperson would consider any intelligence created by humans to be artificial, such as "artificial cells" or other "AI" like Watson. That's what I meant by "generally accepted" but I realize that my comment reflected very little of the thoughts I had when I made it.

Using that definition, Global Civilization, regardless of how complex it has become, is nearly entirely created by humans. Ignoring the "human" part of Oxford's definition for civilization[1], you could say that certain groups of animals do have a form of civilization: some dolphins and killer whales, for example, teach their children very specialized hunting and recreational methods that others within their species do not know. But no other animal engages in anything at the scale of Global Civilization. In that sense, Global Civilization is an artificial construct (intelligence, if you like).

I'm not arguing that it isn't intelligence. It's almost like a virus, really, in that it can't do anything by itself (it requires humans), but it certainly has life-like characteristics when powered by a "host."

[1] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng...

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