Harvard, Tufts, UVM Scientists Create Living Robots from Frogs

Other examples of what? I listed the only two broad categories of intelligence I could think of - natural and artificial, which seem to cover everything. What do you mean, exactly?

Organisms tend to evolve similar mechanisms for survival independently. The range is quite limited.

Other examples of intelligence being created from non-intelligence.

I don’t think there are any. I think there’s natural intelligence, which wasn’t created by intelligence, and artificial intelligence, which was.

What other examples of intelligence are there?

It’s an iteration of a process of change, small changes to the genetic code.

A lot of Darwin’s ideas aren’t really relevant anymore or have been superseded or discredited. That’s how it goes. But, no, I’m not surprised by it. I haven’t argued here that there isn’t, to be clear. I’m just taking issue with @OysterOmelet’s assertion that “the evidence is very strong” for it.

1 Like

I misread. Sorry.

Yeah, isn’t there, like, a return to Lamarckism, or something?

Back in the '70s or '80s, I got into a dispute with my dad, who had ideas that were essentially Lamarck-ish (but I don’t think he knew who Lamarck was–I think he came up with his ideas independently). I was on the opposing side, natural selection. Finally my dad said something like, “Some day, when your mind has matured, and you’ve acquired enough knowledge, you’ll see that I’m right.” At the time, I thought, how typically arrogant of him.

Decades later, @urodacus posted this (and life sciences are his bag), in May of 2011:

I don’t know if my mind has matured, and I doubt I have much new knowledge, but I hereby admit that my dad was right. :slight_smile:

One last note: If recall correctly, I think some sort of “Why is there matter?” idea crossed my mind a few years back. But talk about an immovable object! And kind of scary, too. So I gave up.

1 Like

I’ve heard something about that. Does it have to do with epigenetics maybe? I haven’t been following this stuff as closely lately as I used to.

1 Like

Yes, @urodacus mentioned that, and he also mentioned this person:

So you were, maybe, a life sciences major?

1 Like

Ha! No, an economics major :slight_smile: But I spent a lot of time in origins-type conversations for a few years. Got a little tired of it, and other things are happening now

1 Like

Well, consider it involves all animals, plants, fungi, protists, and monera, your definition of ‘limited’ may vary.

Never mind that. Just ask yourself exactly what intelligence they’re imitating with evolutionary algorithms, a form of AI.

I’d prefer if you answer - it literally follows on from something you asked me. So if you can’t answer your own question, it’d be useful to know before continuing.

Why? The answer is obvious and pretty much in the name. There’s nothing for me to ask myself here, but I don’t think it means what you think it means…

I can’t think of other types of intelligence besides natural and artificial either. Not sure what it has to do with my question, but if it’ll help you answer, great.

Great! What is it?

To my thinking the why is missing the point which is to experience what is, and the fact that we seem to evolving physically and socially in the direction of lesser pain and more pleasure supplies the why… because life is that way.

But goddamn, you two. Nice long volley!

1 Like

Dolphins have bigger brains, even proportional to their bodies than our three closest relatives (chimps, gorillas, and orangutans).

Conway-Morris goes on to explain that the ice age produced bigger brains, in sea mammals just as extreme aridity did it in hominids in Africa.

Intelligence, it must be pointed out, is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon. Many animals have evolved intelligence to different degrees. Self reflection, consciousness, social structure (including altruism, tribality, war, and so on), communication, planning, etc., have been seen time and time again in mammals, birds, cephalopods, and even, some say, in some insects (hymenoptera).

it’s a matter of degree, but many animals come close to human levels. But one thing that is strongly evolved in humans is their culture. Once cultures develop past some significant threshold level, then they become the mechanism and the drivers of the evolution of some kind of extra-corporeal intelligence.

5 Likes

I just found this paraphrase of Darwin’s spokesman Huxley:

Huxley is quite clear that traditional approaches to teleology, such as that adopted by William Paley, face a severe challenge from Darwin’s account of evolution. Yet the theory of evolution, he argues, bears witness to a “wider teleology,” deeply rooted in the structure of the universe. Darwin forced the redefinition of the idea of teleology, not its abandonment.

Biology is inevitably trending towards greater use of teleological language:

Yet the tide has turned in the last decades. It is now widely accepted that some notion of teleology is essential to make sense of what is observed in nature. This does not amount to the endorsement of traditional Christian notions of design or purpose in nature; it does, however, undermine the simplistic slogan, “Darwinism defeats teleology,” so characteristic of some recent atheistic writers. Thus the biologist Francisco Ayala that the notion of teleological explanation is actually fundamental to modern biology. It is required to account for the familiar functional roles played by parts of living organisms, and to describe the goal of reproductive fitness which plays such a central role in accounts of natural selection. “The use of teleological explanations in biology is not only acceptable but indeed indispensable.”

Ernst Mayr (1904-2005), widely credited with inventing the modern philosophy of biology, especially of evolutionary biology, concurs. While recognizing some objections to the use of teleological language in biology, Mayr notes that biologists continue to use teleological language, insisting that it is methodologically and heuristically appropriate and helpful. As Mayr rightly points out, natural abounds in processes and activities that lead to an end or goal. However we choose to interpret them, examples of goal-directed behavior are widespread in the natural world; indeed, “the occurrence of goal-directed processes is perhaps the most characteristic feature of the world of living systems.” Mayr thus insists that “the use of so-called ‘teleological language’ by biologists is legitimate.” In many ways, Mayr here echoes the views of Thomas Huxley, set out a century earlier.

1 Like

The above should read “. . . shows how hard it is to escape the idea of design. . . .”

Edited to add:

. . .

Good stuff, and I hope I get up the gumption to take a closer look at the points raised.

1 Like

I understood what you meant the first time. :slight_smile:

1 Like

Yes, the fact that organisms exhibit a teleogical desire to live in order to reproduce is one of the main themes of Dawkin’s Selfish Gene.