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Article 5383 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: maxwebb@ogicse.cse.ogi.edu (Max G. Webb)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The intentionality of corpsicles
Message-ID: <36949@ogicse.ogi.edu>
Date: 4 May 92 02:15:11 GMT
Article-I.D.: ogicse.36949
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Organization: Oregon Graduate Institute (formerly OGC), Beaverton, OR
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Ivan Ordonez-Reinoso:
     But the people who designed the mobile shelters need to
     be  very  stupid  to  include  such a complex surviving
     mechanism, and exclude the idea that the main  function
     of the shelters is to protect them.
 
Ever used a condom? Ever heard  of  vasectomies?  Evolution,
which  presumably  installed  your  sexual drive in you, was
very stupid; it failed to hardwire the idea  that  its  main
function was to propagate the genome.
 
BTW, It is odd that you should bring up the subject of  stu-
pid designers.
 
Evidence as to the ultimate 'stupidity' and adhoc nature  of
evolution abounds. You need look no further than the surface
of your retina which keeps its nerves in front of the  light
receptors.  This  results  in  the  famous scotoma, or blind
spot. [The octopus eye, evolving from different initial con-
ditions,  has  a  much  more  sensible arrangement, with the
nerves in back.] It is as plain as the  nose  on  your  face
[inconveniently draining, as it does, into the esophagus].
 
Evolution blundered along for more than half of its  history
without  discovering  sex,  that fundamental tool of genetic
algorithms; Only the  last  1/6th  of  evolutionary  history
includes multicellular animals.
 
If evolution has some special  'primary  intentionality'  it
gives  no  sign  of it. It shows every indication of flowing
into the same blind alleys repeatedly, but gaining  momentum
as new evolutionary mechanisms like sex and learning evolve.
 
Ivan Ordonez-Reinoso:
     I work with genetic algorithms, and my experience  from
     what  they  can  and  cannot  do tells me that they are
     nothing but a pale shadow of the real thing.
 
I've used them too. See above -- evolution  itself  evolves.
People  used  to  argue  that, since self-organizing systems
were impossible, mechanical evolution  was  impossible;  Now
that  we  have  built  some,  they say they don't work 'well
enough!' Odd how the goal posts keep  having  to  be  moved!
That is the risky thing about the argument from ignorance.
 
Ivan Ordonez-Reinoso:
     Machines can duplicate, and they can evolve.  But  they
     will  always  be  machines,  no matter how complex they
     become.  They  will  always  be  equivalent  to  Turing
     Machines.  Unless  somebody proves that life is totally
     computable, your thought experiment proves nothing.
 
The consensus among biologists is  that  evolution  is  non-
teleological, mechanical, and 'blind,' and that this process
created us.
 
My point is that  this  has  consequences  for  the  derived
intentionality/  original intentionality distinction. Zeleny
saw this, and claimed that biology wouldn't reduce  to  phy-
sics;  I  claim  that is a strike against causal theories --
the further we get with biology, the less they make sense.
 
        Max G. Webb


