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Article 5397 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: petersow@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com (Wayne Peterson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: What is Intelligence anyway? (Was: Re: Intelligence, awareness, etc)
Message-ID: <1992May4.162855.911@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com>
Date: 4 May 92 16:28:55 GMT
Article-I.D.: saifr00.1992May4.162855.911
References: <1992Apr29.025810.10175@highland.oz.au> <1992May3.190755.21824@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Organization: Honeywell Air Transport Systems Division
Lines: 42

Mr. Zirdum states:>
>I have never seen any evidence that awareness is/can be
>seperated from the physical world that one is aware of!
>When one is aware, one is aware of something! When they
>are aware of nothing they are NOT conscious.

How about a dream?  maybe you have no evidence about dreams.
How about hypnosis?  maybe you have no evidence about hypnosis.
How about memory, or imagination and of course meditation.

All of the above requires consciousness (yes even memory, although
one could split hairs on this one.)

> Now the
>question becomes can a being be aware of a 'thing' without
>being intelligent? If one is aware of a thing then one
>presumably knows about that thing that one is aware of,
>thus one can use the thing intelligently. Do not attempt
>to go any further without answering the above question.

I have trouble with your presumption.  How does being aware
of something mean that we know something about which we are
aware.  Do we have a knowledge that precedes awareness, or
does knowledge arise from awareness.  Perhaps it is possible
to be aware of something in which you have no knowledge.  Perhaps
it could be possible to be aware without thinking. (meditation)

>It is obvious to me that a being that can recognize
>a thing is INTELLIGENT (to a degree)
>To say that one can be aware of something without being
>able to recognize or otherwise know about it is pure BS.
>(Since I don't want to argue here about what recognition
>means I am perfectly willing to use 'know about' as a
>replacement!)
I am sorry, but you made a leap from being aware to recognizing
something.  Recognition is a loaded term with many levels of
meaning.  Can one be aware of something without recognizing
it?  Can one be aware of something without trying to recognize
it?

Sincerely,
Wayne Peterson


