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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: Thought Question
Message-ID: <jqbD34493.6wA@netcom.com>
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References: <3f23q4$oc4@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> <3g83cf$plu@ixnews2.ix.netcom.com> <3gboud$b8b@prime.mdata.fi> <3gc7p8$c3t@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 11:07:51 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai.alife:2020 comp.ai.philosophy:25039 comp.ai:26856

In article <3gc7p8$c3t@agate.berkeley.edu>,
 <jerrybro@uclink2.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>jsand@mits.mdata.fi (Jan Sand) wrote:
>
>] evolution that you speak of in the machines is totally 100% in the
>] -=>evolution of consciousness, or at the very minimum in the progressive
>] -=>learning, of the human beings who design and build them.
>] 
>] -=>Prem
>] 
>] That's nonsense! The implication is, as in many of your other postings,
>] that humanity stands outside nature and is immune to natural law. Humanity
>] is as natural a force for evolution as any other. If machines evolve
>] towards more speed and power (and these are not the only criteria by far)
>] it is because these are the survival characteristics for this particular
>] line of machines.
>
>At least we can agree, hopefully, that cars don't reproduce by
>individually producing offspring, and so they are not selected through
>individual survival.  It is a *model*, a *type* of car that
>proves itself and so inspires the designers to make a car like
>it.  Moreover designers get ideas for new cars that they think
>will be nice to try.  Meanwhile the variations that occur in
>biological individuals are random mutations.

The key concept here is teleology.
-- 
<J Q B>
